


Change The Words, Make Me Blind

by commoncomitatus



Category: Legend of the Seeker
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-19
Updated: 2010-09-19
Packaged: 2017-12-26 03:15:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 35
Words: 257,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/960944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commoncomitatus/pseuds/commoncomitatus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-"Tears". After learning that Zedd wrote Dahlia out of her life, Cara makes him cast a spell to help her remember an existence where they were broken together. [Archived from Livejournal].</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“It’s not exactly the People’s Palace, is it?”

Kahlan laughed; the disdainful irony in Richard’s voice (not quite bitterness, but close enough to still sting a little) wasn’t lost on her, but the situation was truly laughable.

Scarcely a week earlier, the Seeker and his companions had defeated the Keeper of the Underworld, repairing the tear in the veil between the Underworld and the world of the living, and saving all life in the world from certain destruction... all the while, of course, staring down the face of insurmountable odds and outrageous (not to mention questionable) prophecy. In short, scarcely a week earlier, Richard Cypher, Seeker of Truth, heir to the empire of D’Hara, had finally completed the seemingly impossible quest that had so weighed heavy on his shoulders for the best part of an entire year.

It was unquestionably a time for celebration, a time for enjoyment and entertainment, decadence and dancing... and yet (by some twist of fate that could only have come from the same Creator who had written the damned prophecies in the first place) they were, for the third night in a row, whiling away the hours in a mildewed cave just south of nowhere. Had the situation not been so absurd, it would have been heartbreaking.

“No,” Kahlan said, affirming Richard’s observation with a smile that belied the pitiful situation. “It’s not.”

Despite herself, despite the knowledge that they were far from alone (the wizard Zedd and the Mord-Sith Cara just a few short feet away), she couldn’t quite suppress the sudden need to reach across and take Richard’s hand in hers.

The gesture was small, practically insignificant, but the way Richard’s entire presence seemed to light up at the little contact was far from either of those things. If they both lived to see a thousand more years, Kahlan knew she would never fail to be rendered utterly breathless by how little it took to make him happy. He was the Seeker of Truth, possibly the most important figure to rise up in centuries... and he was beaming like a little boy on his birthday simply because she’d taken his hand in hers. The shining simplicity of it was beautiful.

“You’d think,” he went on with a wry chuckle, “we’d get more of a hero’s welcome than this.” He gestured at the dank walls with the hand that wasn’t nestled in Kahlan’s. “A proper meal, at least.”

“And what’s wrong with what we have?” Zedd piped up from across the meagre fire they’d managed to stoke.

Though he sounded genuinely offended by the implication that his cooking might be anything other than perfect, the wizard’s old eyes were sparkling with good-natured amusement, and Kahlan drank deep of the warmth in them. For all the situational misery that insisted on surrounding their little group from every angle, she could always count on Zedd to be a lightening presence.

“I’ll have you know,” he went on, “I worked long and hard to get the flavours just right. It takes powerful magic, you know, to make these things—”

“All right,” Richard interrupted, laughing. “Thanks for the meal, Zedd. It’s lovely.”

Zedd heaved a dejected sigh. “You could at least _pretend_ to mean it,” he said, forlorn.

“It is,” Kahlan assured him, though she didn’t take her eyes off Richard. “It’s wonderful, Zedd, thank you. Richard just thinks, after everything we’ve been through, we’ve earned a proper meal in a proper tavern. That’s all.”

Zedd waved a hand, gesturing with so much enthusiasm that it was a wonder he didn’t extinguish the sputtering fire.

“I wouldn’t worry, my boy,” he remarked dismissively. “There’ll be time enough for that later. With the veil repaired and the Keeper banished to the Underworld where he belongs, we’ll have plenty of time to celebrate our victory in whatever luxuriant quarters you wish—”

“—just as soon as the rain stops,” Richard finished for him, real amusement colouring the weariness in his voice; it wasn’t the first time the wizard had pointed out that particular fact.

“Exactly!” Zedd affirmed, nodding wisely.

It was, even Kahlan had to admit, more than a little unfortunate. They had been barely two days into their journey from the Pillars of Creation (with the glittering promise of civilisation still some days’ distance away) when the bad weather had caught up with them. The sky itself seemed to have been torn asunder by the Creator herself, sheets upon sheets of rain lashing down on the four travellers and rendering any further progress impossible. For all their longing to reach a welcoming town and a warm bed, the natural world had other plans for the small band of heroes that had saved it so selflessly; relentless, it had driven them to seek out shelter in the convenient-but-unwelcoming cave that had been their home for the last three days and looked like it would be for at least another.

Still, blessedly, nature’s best efforts had done little to dampen the good spirits of the group it so cruelly tormented; Richard was still aglow with the freshness of his victory, Kahlan was weak with relief at having been freed from the grip of the Con Dar (to say nothing of Nicci’s twisted control over her), and they were both giddy with joy at the discovery that Richard was immune to Kahlan’s Confessor’s powers. In spite of the rain, in spite of the cold and miserable cave walls that closed in around them, in spite of how close the Keeper had come to victory... they were content.

Zedd, too, despite his best efforts to appear genuinely wounded at the affront to his cooking skills, was unable to hide the warmth radiating from him as he watched the gentle flurries of tenderness passing between his grandson and the Mother Confessor. The fleeting touches of Kahlan’s hand against Richard’s seem to lift Zedd’s spirits almost as completely as they lifted her own, and it touched her heart to know that the old wizard cared so deeply (for Richard, of course, but specifically for Kahlan as well) that he would be so moved by something so small.

It was only when Zedd’s gaze lowered, eyes clouding almost imperceptibly as if lost in deep contemplation, that Kahlan stopped to wonder if perhaps his happiness wasn’t quite as all-engulfing as that of his more youthful companions.

He didn’t say anything, didn’t voice whatever troubled thoughts were working their way through his mind; they were, of course, all used to that by now, but Kahlan could tell by the way he didn’t immediately look back up that whatever had taken over his mind had taken it over completely.

For a moment, Kahlan seriously considered intruding on his musings; she wanted to ask if he was all right, or else make a point of loudly reiterating her love for Richard (so that Zedd might once again draw warmth and happiness from their shared affection and banish whatever darkness was descending on him), but she refrained from doing either of these things. Instead, she quietly acquiesced to letting him sit there, watching him carefully across the fire even as her own attention was brought once again back to the man who sat beside her.

Richard smiled, apparently oblivious to his grandfather’s rising thoughtfulness; his fingers were rough and inviting as they closed around hers, and his striking Seeker’s eyes were glittering with promise as they locked on her face as though she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

“I love you,” he murmured, and the words were meant for her ears alone.

Kahlan smiled, a pleasant blush inching its way up her neck. “I know.”

He leaned in just a little, a prelude to the kiss that she knew would follow, and she could do little more than melt into the way they came together as his free hand tangled in the dark tresses of her hair. Zedd and his troubles long forgotten now, Kahlan let her eyes drift closed, suddenly aware of nothing but Richard. Richard, with his strength and his gentleness, with his heat and his softness and the perfect way his lips laid claim to hers.

Kahlan had no way of knowing how long they stayed that way, aware but uncaring of the presence of others so close to them, conscious but unaffected by the damp cold of the cave walls and the precarious way the fire sputtered and threatened to die if even the ghost of a breeze passed over it. It could have been moments or minutes, days or decades. For all Kahlan knew, it could have been a century; she suspected, though, that it probably wasn’t quite so long... if only because it still wasn’t nearly enough.

“Wizard!”

Stifling a grimace, and smiling at the way Richard’s laughter rippled like a river against her mouth, Kahlan pulled herself away from him.

From where she sat, almost the entire cave’s length removed from them, Cara was glaring at Zedd as though he’d thrown a dacra right at her head. Her eyes were wild (as they often were when she was displeased), and every inch of her was quivering with pent-up aggression, of the kind that Kahlan knew from experience she was working with all her strength to keep from venting on the nearest available target (or, in this case, Zedd).

“Wizard,” she repeated, quiet but inescapably lethal. “You’re staring at me again.”

Kahlan’s gaze flicked back to Zedd; she expected him to deny it, to point out with his usual depthless patience that he was merely deep in thought, and hadn’t been looking at anything or anyone in particular.

“I’m sorry,” he said instead, and Kahlan blinked.

“Don’t apologise,” snapped Cara, impatient and moody and so typically Mord-Sith that it actually made Kahlan chuckle. “Just stop it.”

“I was concerned,” Zedd offered, raising both hands in a gesture of apologetic surrender. “That’s all. You’re looking a little unwell, and it’s not like you to sit so far away from a nice hot fire...”

“It’s not?” Richard asked, frowning blankly.

Kahlan shrugged, glancing briefly at Cara, whose temper seemed to be rising higher and higher with every passing moment that her companions spent staring at her for no apparent reason.

For once, Kahlan couldn’t help empathising with the easily-offended Cara; it was no secret that she liked her distance and privacy, and, as much as she had changed over the course of their time together, she still hadn’t quite surrendered the walls of self-preservation that had been built up so unfathomably high around her for her entire life. She still wasn’t comfortable, Kahlan knew, with the idea of huddling around an open fire with friends and talking about nothing in particular, and the others usually respected that (even if they all wished it could be otherwise). Cara was just Cara, and Kahlan couldn’t really blame her for being aggravated by such sudden needless attention to the fact, and least of all from a worrywart old wizard.

“Cara likes her privacy,” she pointed out quietly, stepping in on the irate Mord-Sith’s behalf, lest Cara take matters into her own (considerably more violent) hands, and studying Zedd with a puzzled frown. “Are _you_ feeling unwell, Zedd?”

A reticent sigh escaped the wizard’s lips, as though the question had struck him on a level that none of the others could ever fathom.

“Possibly,” he admitted, and there was such a depth of weariness in his voice that Kahlan found herself genuinely worried about him.

“Whatever your condition may be,” Cara growled, characteristically unsympathetic, “if you don’t wish for it to be made worse, you will stop staring.”

Zedd exhaled, tight with perplexity. “Cara,” he said, and his trademark gentleness was suddenly coloured by something that sounded surprisingly like discomfort. “You know me well enough to know that I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“Well, you _are_ ,” she shot back icily.

“Zedd,” Kahlan tried again, knowing before she even got the words out that they’d fall on deaf ears; when Zedd got a notion into his head, however indecipherable it was to those around him, it was near-impossible to make him give it up for anything. “She’s just being Cara. Leave her alone. You know what she’s like.”

“I thought I did,” Zedd murmured ominously.

Cara shot to her feet at that, as though the ground beneath her had suddenly caught fire. Predictably, her hands were already resting on the twin handles of her agiels, though she refrained from drawing them just yet. The rage was clear on her face, though, and Kahlan was sure she caught just the barest trace of rejection there, too; as unlikely as it was, it seemed like Cara had actually been truly offended by the wizard’s words.

“What, exactly, is that supposed to mean?” she demanded, all bitterness and rough edges.

“Cara...” Richard started.

“No,” she snarled, rounding swiftly on him as he stood and took a long step towards her.

It was a mark of how upset she was, Kahlan couldn’t help noting, that a single word from her Lord Rahl hadn’t been enough to stop her in her tracks.

“ _No_ ,” she repeated, more emphatically. “I want to know.” Dismissing the Seeker with a wave, one that made it clear he would have to explicitly order her to stand down if he wanted it, she turned back to Zedd. “How many times have I proven my loyalties to you people? How many times have I put my own life in danger for Richard... for any of you? And you’re questioning me _now_ , wizard, because I don’t wish to be disturbed?”

“No!” Zedd sounded positively devastated, though that did little to cool the Mord-Sith’s swollen temper. “No, Cara. It’s nothing like that, I promise you.”

“Then tell me!” she barked, violently shaking off the hand that Richard was trying to lay on her shoulder. “Tell me why you keep staring at me like you’ve never seen me before in your life. Tell me why, after more than a year of me proving myself, you’re looking at me now like you expect me to turn around and slaughter you all in your sleep? You think, because the Keeper isn’t a threat any longer, I don’t still serve the true Lord Rahl? You think I don’t still serve _Richard_?” She threw up her arms, anger and wounded betrayal warring for dominance in her eyes. “You’re right, wizard. You don’t know me.”

Kahlan, for her part, couldn’t quite figure out where to look. On one side of the cave, Cara was twitching with rage, and it was obvious that the only reason she hadn’t already launched herself at the disrespectful wizard was because she thought Richard might disapprove of her for it; on the opposite side, Zedd was wringing his hands, as if, by staring at them, he might be able to stumble upon a spell that would get him out of the trouble he’d somehow landed himself in.

“Listen to me,” he said, after a pause that stretched Cara’s patience and Kahlan’s nerves almost to breaking point. “I didn’t mean it the way I’m sure it must’ve sounded to you. I wasn’t questioning your loyalties, Cara, or your devotion to Richard, Kahlan, and myself. You _have_ proven yourself... and the Cara I know would know me better than to think I’d ever dare to insinuate something like that.”

“The Cara _you_ know,” she sneered acidly. “And what am I?”

“It’s a long story,” he replied, and the depth of sudden tiredness in his eyes told Kahlan that that was an understatement.

Cara put her hands on her hips. “Well?” she grumbled. “We’re not going anywhere.”

Something in the haunted way Zedd’s shoulders slumped gave Kahlan pause, and she shifted to the wizard’s side. “What happened, Zedd?”

She punctuated the question, brief as it was, by touching his arm in a gesture of support and faith; if she were honest, though, she was almost afraid of what possible answer he could have that would cause him to look so worn out just to think of it.

“I may have...” he began, whipcord tense, “...changed some things.”

“Like what?” Kahlan asked, but Zedd wasn’t listening to her.

“Cara,” he said, and his milky gaze was fixed on the Mord-Sith as though she were the only thing in the world. “Please... you have to understand. I had no other choice.”

Not the most patient person even at the best of times, Cara had taken about all she could stand of his dalliances, and closed the space between them in a single step. Richard tried to catch her arm, but she shook him away as if he was little more than a buzzing fly; Kahlan could tell at a glance that she too would meet the same fate if she tried to step in.

“Tell me,” Cara snarled, eyes dark with rage as they held Zedd captive, and Kahlan watched as her fingers twitched in their gloves with the effort of not striking him.

“You,” Zedd admitted, sounding tortured. “I changed _you_.”

The admission, though it probably shouldn’t have been a surprise given how tormented the wizard was looking, nonetheless hit Kahlan with all the force of a blow; suddenly, she found herself struggling to keep her knees from buckling beneath the sheer weight of it. She sensed rather than heard the sharp intake of breath that marked Richard’s reaction (a perfect mirror, it seemed, of her own), and she wanted to go to his side, but she was frozen in place.

Cara, where she stood, merely clenched her already-quivering fists ever more tightly and growled like a wild, wounded beast.

“Like I said,” Zedd went on, clearly sensing that now was not the time to pause for dramatic effect. “It’s a very long story. If you would just let me tell it...”

“Do it quickly,” Cara ordered him, the words coming out as a hiss through gritted teeth. “Before I drive your skull through the nearest wall.”

Zedd’s stories were seldom simple, even when they were brief; the wizard wasn’t exactly known for skimping on details (unless it was in his own best interests to keep his friends in the dark, which Kahlan found was more often than it should be), and they were all long accustomed to preparing themselves for tales that were as intricate and complicated as they were long and winding. Kahlan half-suspected that she knew precisely the breed of story they were all about to hear, and so she found herself caught completely off-guard when – instead of easing them in with five hours’ worth of exposition – Zedd instead cut immediately to the quick.

“Rahl broke you again.”

Cara took a long step backwards, and Kahlan couldn’t quite figure out whether the distance she put between herself and the wizard was to keep from punching him or collapsing on top of him. She was looking decidedly queasy all of a sudden, and Kahlan couldn’t blame her one bit; even as she watched, she could feel the colour draining from her own face, and knew that if she looked to Richard, she would see exactly the same in him as well. As well as they all knew Zedd, none of them had expected this.

“What?” Cara managed at last, and all of the brutality had suddenly bled out of a voice that was now thick with horror.

“I’m sorry,” Zedd replied, barely audible. “I’m so very sorry, Cara.”

Not caring about the consequences, Kahlan closed the space between herself and the twitching Mord-Sith and gently placed a supportive hand on her too-tense shoulder. It was a tribute to how deeply Zedd’s words had landed that Cara made no effort to pull away from the comforting touch (though she didn’t lean into it, either), and Kahlan gave her a sympathetic squeeze before turning her attention back towards the sorrow-stricken wizard.

“Why?” she asked softly, and Cara flinched violently beneath her fingers.

“Isn’t it obvious?” she snapped, sounding more miserable than Kahlan had ever heard her.

Then, finally, she did tear herself away from the lingering tenderness of Kahlan’s touch. She didn’t elaborate on her observation (though, so far as Kahlan could tell, the logic was anything but obvious), opting instead to retreat to the most distant corner of the cave, as though she believed the space would somehow protect her from what she was about to hear. Kahlan ached to go to her, but she knew better, and instead stayed where she was, willing Cara to draw strength from the empathy in her.

“Well, wizard?” Cara demanded, spitting his title like a curse. “What are you waiting for?”

And so, with uncharacteristic uneasiness and surprising conciseness, Zedd told them.

It was obvious, even to Kahlan (whose focus was frankly more on the way Cara quivered as the tale progressed than on Zedd’s storytelling skills), that he was omitting details; she had no idea what they were – or, indeed, how important – but it was pretty clear that the overall chain of events remained undamaged by whatever it was he opted to leave out, and so she didn’t question his decision.

From what Kahlan could discern from his convoluted tale, Cara had been lured into an ambush by one of her former sisters and re-broken by Darken Rahl, through the use of what Zedd had only been able to describe as ‘insidious dark magic’. When pressed (by Richard, and then by Cara, though Kahlan held her tongue), the old wizard became ominously evasive and simply said sadly that he didn’t know; his uncomfortable vagueness, far more than any explanation he could have given, sent lightning bolts of fear arcing through Kahlan’s heart.

“Who was it?”

The interruption, courtesy of Cara, carved a swift gorge through Zedd’s tale, and he blinked in uneasy confusion. “I beg your pardon?”

“Who was it?” Cara repeated, deathly quiet; to Kahlan’s combined relief and concern, the familiar Mord-Sith fury was back on her face, flashing through her eyes like liquid fire and threatening to consume anything that stepped into its path. “Who did it? Which of my former _sisters_ could have possibly outsmarted me? Who among them could have possibly hated me so much that they would seek me out just to humiliate me a second time? Was once not enough?” Her jaw clenched. “Who was it, wizard?”

“Cara...” Zedd pleaded.

“ _Who_?” Cara roared, and the fire flashing behind her eyes was suddenly a blazing inferno. “I will hunt her down, and I will tear her limb from limb. I will kill her with my bare hands, and then I will revive her with the breath of life and kill her a second time... and that will still be less than she deserves for dishonouring me.” She bared her teeth, and that was more than enough to make Kahlan aware of just how serious she was. “Tell me who it was!”

“It doesn’t matter,” he insisted, and the way his voice trembled made Kahlan wonder which of them he was really trying to convince.

“Perhaps not to you,” Cara muttered, “but it matters to me. You aren’t the one who was betrayed twice over. I have the right to know who was responsible for my humiliation, and, even if the only way to loosen your tongue is to remove it, you will tell me.”

“Cara,” Zedd said again, and his voice was still shaking even as he struggled to explain himself. “None of this happened to _you_. This isn’t that world, and you can’t hunt down an innocent woman to exact vengeance for a crime she hasn’t committed.”

“She is a Mord-Sith,” Cara reminded him pointedly. “You, wizard, would be the first to tell me that she is no _innocent_ woman.”

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to tell you!” Zedd cried, a little more aggressively than Kahlan would have expected of him, and all the more so now. “She _isn’t_ a Mord-Sith, Cara. She never was.”

“Zedd, what are you talking about?” Richard asked, blinking with such adorable confusion that Kahlan felt a little of her anxiety melting away at the sight of him.

“Like I said,” Zedd started up again, eyes on Cara alone, as if the Seeker and the Mother Confessor were little more than shadows on the cave walls. “Darken Rahl used magic to re-break you. Insidious, dangerous, powerful dark magic. The only thing I could do to free you from it was...” He trailed off, taking a moment to compose himself, and giving Cara and the others a moment to brace. “I attempted the spell of undoing.”

“A spell?” Cara echoed, raising an eyebrow. She sounded almost disappointed by the mundanity of it.

“Not just any spell,” Zedd said with a sigh. “It was cast with the hope of unbreaking you... and it did. Just not in the way I’d hoped.”

He didn’t need to go on, at least not for Kahlan’s benefit; though she could feel the confusion still radiating from Richard and Cara, she herself understood.

“She never became a Mord-Sith,” she mused aloud.

“Exactly,” Zedd affirmed, looking relieved that he hadn’t needed to be the one to say it. “She was never broken, not even as a child. She never intercepted us when Richard used the power of Orden to defeat Darken Rahl, and the veil was never torn. You two—” He gestured absently at Richard, then inclined his head at Kahlan, still not truly seeing them. “—were to be married.”

“It sounds wonderful,” Kahlan heard herself whisper, eyes on Richard, and realised just a moment too late how the words must have sounded to Cara. The Mord-Sith, blessedly, didn’t offer any reaction beyond a derisive grunt, but Kahlan forced herself to backpedal even so. “I mean, ‘different’. It sounds... very different.”

“It was,” Zedd affirmed, a little too readily. “But it wasn’t the way the world was meant to be... and the Keeper knew it as well.”

“So you undid the undoing spell,” Cara stated flatly. “For the good of the world.”

“We tried to,” the wizard said, “but we were intercepted by the Mord-Sith. They killed Cara before I could finish the spell—”

“This is absurd!” Cara spluttered, finally sounding a little more like herself. “In one world, I’m captured and re-broken. In another, I’m dead?” She rolled her eyes, and Kahlan had never been more grateful to see her so sarcastic. “If you want me to leave, wizard, just say so. It would be my pleasure.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Zedd told her. “You know I want nothing of the sort. And you know me better than to truly think I’d make any of this up for my own amusement.” Cara hissed, but nodded her acceptance of the point, silently granting Zedd permission to go on. “At any rate,” he continued, “with you dead, I had to cast the spell of undoing on Dahlia instead.”

As desperately as she fought to conceal it, Cara’s sudden sharp intake of breath was audible all the way across the cave, and Kahlan had to dig her heels into the loose ground to keep from crossing to her side and taking her into her arms. She couldn’t quite suppress the desire to study her, though, and there was no mistaking the way she’d blanched even more than she already was.

“Dahlia?” she repeated, practically choking on the name. “Did you say ‘Dahlia’?”

“You remember her?” Zedd asked, the disbelieving shock evident on his face.

“We were schoolmates,” Cara explained, voice shaky. “Before I was taken by the Mord-Sith. We were... we were...”

 _Friends_.

Kahlan felt an unpleasant tightening in her chest as the unuttered sentiment slammed into her. Cara would never say it aloud, she knew, however badly she may have wanted to. She couldn’t. The word, insignificant as it was, was simply beyond her capacity.

Kahlan remembered (too vividly, too painfully) an incident, just a couple of months earlier, when she and Cara had been trapped in a tomb; with their air running out and their chances of survival flickering closer to nonexistence with every breath they took, the look on Cara’s face in the moments before they’d been rescued had torn her heart asunder.

More than anything in the world, she could tell, Cara had wanted to say it, to just open her mouth and say – despite everything that should have been standing between them – that she cared, that Kahlan was more than a sister in the sense of their shared desire to protect Richard, but in every other way as well. That they were, against all odds, _friends_.

The heat, the urgency, the irrepressible need to be honest (to speak those words however much it would hurt to do so), had poured from Cara like a tidal wave, almost enough to leave Kahlan drowning... but, though the sentiment couldn’t have been clearer, the words themselves had never come. And they probably never would. Cara just didn’t have them in her.

“What are you trying to tell me, wizard?” the Mord-Sith was asking, sounding every inch the little girl she had been before becoming the woman her former sisters had shaped her into. “That, in some other world, Dahlia was taken too? That she and I served together as Mord-Sith?”

“Yes,” Zedd confessed, hanging his head and looking heartbroken. “You... the two of you were close.”

“Close?” Cara echoed, and her voice was suddenly hard as flint, as though that brief flash of childlike innocence had never been there at all. “ _Close_?”

“Intimate,” the wizard admitted quietly, and Kahlan was forced to bite back an inappropriate chuckle as Richard began to choke. “I believe you were intimate.”

For a few very long moments, Cara said nothing. Kahlan watched, unable to tear her gaze away, as a thousand or more different expressions rippled like raindrops across her features. It lasted scarcely a heartbeat before they were gone, far too quickly to make out any given one of them; still, there was something enrapturing about the sight, so much unguarded feeling touching the face of one so resistant to it. It was as if Cara had forgotten she wasn’t alone, and, were she not so worried, Kahlan would almost have felt privileged to be allowed the opportunity to see this in her.

Where, just moments ago, she had been baying for this enigmatic Mord-Sith’s blood, suddenly Cara seemed almost exactly the opposite. Suddenly, with the addition of one seemingly unimportant sliver of information, she seemed almost contrite, as if she empathised (if such a thing was possible) with the monster who had apparently been more than willing to betray her through some misguided loyalty to Darken Rahl. Kahlan couldn’t fathom it; she’d always believed that intimacy was little more than another of the Mord-Sith’s many weapons, and Cara herself had offered much evidence in support of that – and on more occasions than either of them could count. Why did the concept suddenly mean so much to her now?

Whatever the reason, apparently it did, because the look Cara gave Zedd when she finished reeling from the impact was one that could only be described as desperate.

“How long?”

Zedd blinked, clearly wanting to help, but too confused to actually do so. “What do you mean?”

“For how _long_ ,” Cara hissed, clenching her jaw so tightly that it went white, “were we _intimate_?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then guess.”

Zedd sighed, frustration mingling with sincere regret. “I don’t know, Cara. All I know is that you said you’d known her for many years. You were schoolmates together before you were Mord-Sith, and then you served together for a long time after you—”

“— _bastard_!”

The insult cracked across the cave like a whip, cutting off Zedd’s helpless mumblings and lancing through Kahlan as if she was made of sugar. She was no stranger to Cara’s particular brand of verbal venom, but even she was taken aback by the sheer depth of hatred in that one word. It didn’t take much to get Cara truly furious (even at the best of times) and Zedd’s story had driven her there long before now, but this was a step above even what Kahlan would have expected of her. Kahlan had admittedly been slightly afraid, even before now, that Cara might lash out and hurt the wizard if he kept going; now, though, she was terrified – honestly terrified – that the Mord-Sith would simply snap his neck.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” she snarled, feral, and it was only thanks to Richard’s quick thinking in choosing to launch himself across the room and catch her by the arm that she was kept from diving on the wizard and killing him with her bare hands. “You arrogant, self-serving—”

“Cara!” Richard barked, holding her tightly, and Kahlan could only watch in numb horror from where she stood. “Cara, calm down.” She struggled, snarling primal obscenities. “That’s an order.”

Despite herself, and in spite of how obviously necessary the command was, Kahlan couldn’t help shuddering a little. It was long established, even accepted, that Cara would listen to nothing but a direct order from the Lord Rahl when she was in this sort of mood; of course, that didn’t make it any less painful for Kahlan to watch the way Richard’s face contorted with discomfort whenever he was forced to adopt that title, even if it was for the purpose of ensuring Cara’s obedience. It was a necessary evil, they all knew that, but the title of ‘Lord Rahl’ was bitter on Richard’s tongue even so, and caused no less pain for Kahlan to see him recoil.

For all that it cost, however, it did have the desired effect. Grudgingly, and with a force of will that clearly took a great deal out of her, Cara took a petulant step back; it wasn’t quite enough to put any real distance between herself and Zedd, but it was enough to make the point that she would refrain from raising a hand against him, however desperately she wanted to. Still, though she was visibly trying to obey Richard’s command, to calm herself before her temper overpowered her completely, her breathing remained harsh and her gaze dangerously wild.

“You have no idea,” she snarled again, a little softer but no less fierce. “None of you.”

“Cara,” Zedd chimed in, apparently ignorant of the obvious fact that the safest possible course of action for him just then would be to keep his mouth shut. “Your consternation is, of course, more than understandable, and I apologise unreservedly for being the cause of it... but the Mord-Sith concept of ‘intimacy’ is hardly in keeping with the word’s true definition. Surely you yourself have had such encounters with your own sisters, even in this world?”

“Not like that,” she replied, without even a moment’s hesitation. “Spirits, wizard, why can’t you understand?” It sounded almost like a plea, though Kahlan knew she would deny it. “If she was taken as well... if we were taken together...”

She trailed off, and her eyes darted briefly to Kahlan, as though she was praying for the Mother Confessor to read the truth within her despite the impossibility of it. When no salvation came (in spite of Kahlan’s genuine efforts to put her out of her apparent misery), she went on, voice dangerously close to cracking—

“...we would have been _trained_ together.”

Zedd flinched at the word, though his outward expression didn’t change. If he understood any of the apparent trauma this fact had inflicted on Cara, he said nothing of the fact, though Kahlan rather suspected he didn’t; the Mord-Sith social hierarchy was confusing at the best of times, and all the more so to an outsider. Even a wizard of the First Order would have great difficulty making any sense of such an oblique observation as Cara’s.

“I’m terribly sorry,” he said, but she was beyond listening to his hollow apologies.

“‘Intimate’,” she spat, and the word was a vicious slap. “You have no idea, wizard. No idea.”

With that, she turned, yanking herself violently free from the grip Richard still had on her arm, and stormed out of the cave without so much as a backwards glance at any of them.

The silence she left in her wake was tangible, and, for Kahlan, almost physically painful. None of the three of them thought to call after her, and, though that was undeniably the sensible option (Kahlan knew as well as the two men did that they might as well spit in the rain for all the good it would do), it nonetheless tugged a little at her heartstrings to be so dismissive, and to see the same in Richard and Zedd.

Much to her relief, Richard didn’t let the moment hang on the air for more than a few moments. Already, as Kahlan tore her gaze from the mouth of the cave to look back at Zedd, the Seeker was reaching for the Sword of Truth and stepping forward with his usual determined resolve.

“What are you doing?” asked Zedd, and he sounded as though the conversation with Cara had taken every last ounce of strength out of him.

“What does it look like?” Richard shot back, impatience colouring his tone, though he didn’t let the question slow him down at all. “I’m going after her.”

“No.”

The word had left Kahlan’s lips almost before she was aware of having thought it, and she felt an embarrassed blush staining her cheeks as the men turned their gazes on her. For a split-second, she had no idea what had inspired her to say it, but the look of blind confusion on Richard’s face as he studied her said it all, and she felt her own resolve rising to meet his. This wasn’t a task for him, she knew. It was a task for her.

“Someone has to bring her back before she gets herself hurt,” Richard was pointing out, with truth enough. “I’m—”

“You’re the Lord Rahl,” Kahlan reminded him, speaking very quietly. “Richard, whatever it is that she’s trying to work through right now, the last thing she needs is an order from the man she’s sworn to serve. What she needs...”

_...is a friend._

“Kahlan’s right,” Zedd affirmed, nodding miserably. “She is the obvious choice for this.”

Unsurprisingly, Richard did not look at all enamoured by the idea of letting Kahlan out in the rain by herself to hunt down a renegade (and dangerously infuriated) Mord-Sith. Were she not so offended by the notion that she couldn’t take care of herself, Kahlan would have almost been touched by his overprotective concern; he was, after all, just being himself and worrying about her, in much the same way as she always worried about him when he was forced to leave her side. As it was, however, she could think of little more than the hundred thousand potential breeds of trouble that Cara was probably already meeting with, and she had neither the time nor the inclination to humour Richard’s overblown sense of chivalry. He had to see the bigger picture, and he had to see it now.

“You know it makes sense,” she told him simply, willing him to see in her eyes how important it was that he let the matter drop.

Richard sighed, but didn’t argue (though she could tell by the frustration on his face that he desperately wanted to). Taking the small victory for what it was, and not wanting to push any further lest he find his voice and insist on going along with her, Kahlan lingered only for as long as it took to press a tenderly confident kiss on his cheek. Despite herself and her mild aggravation, she couldn’t quite keep from smiling at the way he leaned into the contact, and she took a moment to relish the way he felt against her, before turning and following Cara’s phantom presence out into the pouring wall of rain.


	2. Chapter 2

Cara had covered her tracks well enough, but she had underestimated just how much of Richard’s tracking prowess Kahlan had absorbed over the course of their time together.

The sheets of rain didn’t make the task of finding her any easier, and Kahlan supposed Cara had been counting on the weather to help her stay hidden; had a lesser person been sent to find her, perhaps it would have succeeded, but Kahlan Amnell was both skilled and relentless in seeing her task through, and refused to allow such trivial barriers to sway her from what needed to be done. She’d learned eagerly and easily from Richard, who had in turn been positively delighted to share his talents with her (as he was with anyone willing to sit still and listen for thirty seconds), and she found that education suddenly put to good use. For all of Cara’s best efforts, Kahlan would find her, and she would bring her back.

Even half-blinded as she was by the cold water as it splattered into her eyes (almost deliberately, she could have sworn), it didn’t take very long at all for her keen senses to pick up the anguished sounds of violence from a nearby clearing, and she knew, even before she stepped through the blanket of trees that shrouded the area, that she had found her quarry. Not even the most fearsome shadrin, Kahlan knew, could compete with an enraged Cara for sheer destruction.

It surprised her, though she supposed it probably shouldn’t have, that Cara was taking such liberties with the volume of her exertions. She had gone to such great lengths to cover her tracks, to keep herself concealed, to hide herself away from prying eyes; Kahlan simply couldn’t understand why she was so willing to throw all that hard work away by refusing to keep her voice down once she’d reached her destination. Perhaps she simply didn’t believe that anyone would have ventured far enough into the forest in such weather to find her, though Kahlan knew her better than to think for a moment that she’d be so careless or complacent to dismiss her companions’ dedication so quickly. More likely, and the thought caused a knot of anxiety to bubble up within Kahlan’s gut, Cara simply wasn’t thinking clearly enough to care.

Slowly, and with a depth of hesitation that she couldn’t fully explain, Kahlan peered through the waterlogged overgrowth. From the sound of Cara’s enraged exercises, she wholly expected to find the Mord-Sith tearing apart anything and everything that stood still long enough, to hear the bloodthirsty scream of her agiels, to see the primal hunger blazing through her like a forest fire, all-consuming and unstoppable. As it was, she saw none of this, and what she saw instead caught her completely off-guard.

Agiels still holstered at her hip, Cara had opted instead to vent her frustrations on a single tree trunk with her bare fists. Her gloves lay carelessly discarded in an ever-deepening puddle of cold-looking rainwater a couple of feet away, and even through the torrential downpour, Kahlan could see the telltale rawness of painfully skinned knuckles on both of her hands. She wasn’t entirely sure how long the assault had been going on, but the tree looked more than ready to go another ten rounds if it needed to... and she was just a little concerned that Cara would insist on taking it up on the challenge, whether or not her own body was similarly capable.

“Cara,” Kahlan said, gently but with enough volume to carry across both the space between them and the thundering downpour.

She had no doubt that Cara was already well aware of her presence (it would take far more than a rainstorm and a foggy mind to render her unaware of another’s presence in such close proximity), but she hoped that, by announcing herself in such a forthright manner, she would force the other woman to pull her attention away from her labours.

Unfortunately (albeit more than a little predictably), Cara seemed to take Kahlan’s announcement as an invitation to ignore her, and instead redoubled her efforts to fell the tree with her bare hands.

Kahlan sighed and took a couple of steps forward; she wanted to place a hand on Cara’s arm, to pull her away from the tree if she could, but she knew better than to try. When Cara was in a combative mood (even one far less intense than this one seemed to be), anyone foolish enough to come within arms’ reach ran the very serious risk of losing a limb, and Kahlan had no intention of letting herself be counted among that foolish number. Instead, she held back just far enough to ensure she wouldn’t be caught by an unintentional (or, indeed, deliberate) fist, and tried once more to break through to her. 

“Cara,” she repeated, gentle but firm. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

“Good,” Cara growled, and delivered yet another sickening blow to the trunk – one that made the entire world seem to shudder beneath the weight of it.

“Cara,” Kahlan sighed. “Stop. Please.”

That word finally caught the Mord-Sith’s attention, and she whirled around to glare at her unwanted visitor; she had one arm already raised to deliver another punch, and her eyes were wild enough to make it abundantly clear that she would have no issue whatsoever with delivering it to the side of Kahlan’s head, instead of the tree, if she was given the least reason.

Uneasy, Kahlan took a careful step backwards.

“What would you have me do instead, Mother Confessor?” Cara demanded, and the use of the formal title cut Kahlan to the quick; she’d honestly thought they had both evolved beyond that by now. “Blame myself for others’ misdeeds, as Richard would? Weep like an infant over inanimate objects, as you would? Or perhaps I should simply eat my troubles away, like the wizard?”

“You don’t need to—”

“I am not one of you people, Kahlan,” Cara pressed on, ignoring her (though Kahlan couldn’t help relaxing at the more familiar use of her first name). “I am a Mord-Sith. Pain is all we understand.”

Something in the way her voice almost cracked (always ‘almost’, never completely) gave Kahlan a moment’s pause, and she finally summoned courage enough to reach out and place a hand on Cara’s shoulder. The small gesture, though it was certainly not welcomed, wasn’t quite met with violence either, and Kahlan allowed the lack of active resistance to bolster her a little.

“You’re bleeding,” she observed, letting her gaze drop to absorb the full extent of damage that Cara had done to her knuckles in assaulting the tree. “You’ve been out here less than twenty minutes, and already you’re bleeding.”

Cara shrugged, and her carelessness was genuine. “The rain will clean it.”

“That’s not the point, Cara,” Kahlan pointed out quietly, letting her hand lower from the other woman’s shoulder and slide down the curve of her arm.

Ignoring the protests that gurgled in the back of Cara’s throat, she took one of her bloodied hands in both of her own, holding it loosely but with very real compassion. Again (and more than a little surprisingly, Kahlan felt), she found herself met with no complaint; Cara didn’t even blink as she massaged the broken skin with the pads of her thumbs, and the Mord-Sith’s silence only propelled her onwards.

“Here,” she offered, willing the empathy to shine through in her eyes, even if it couldn’t quite touch her voice. “Let me...”

“Don’t.” Cara exhaled tightly. “Kahlan, _don’t_.”

“Cara,” Kahlan said gently, dismissing but not ignoring the protest. She increased the pressure of her ministrations almost imperceptibly, and Cara shivered. “I know how desperately you want to hurt yourself.”

“You’re so perceptive,” Cara deadpanned with her usual sardonic wryness. “And what else do you ‘know’?”

Kahlan refused to rise to the bait. “I know that, however badly you hurt your body, it won’t compete with the pain in your soul,” she said, and smiled sadly as Cara gave a violent flinch beneath her fingers. “I know that you’re trying to come to terms with what you’re feeling, and I know that you’re trying to channel your emotional pain into something physical... something you can understand.”

“Stop.” It was almost a whine.

“Cara,” Kahlan said again, feeling her heart crack and fighting with all her strength to cover up the flaw with a power that she didn’t truly feel. “Can’t you just accept this? Can’t you just... not be _Cara_ for five seconds?”

“Kahlan.” The name on Cara’s lips was a perfect mirror of her own on the Confessor’s, weak but strong. “I am trying... very, very hard... to remember who _Cara_ is. Do not break me of that. Not now.”

Kahlan fought the urge to roll her eyes. “I’m not trying to break you of anything,” she pointed out, feeling her lungs burn at that particular word choice; she knew Cara well enough to know that it couldn’t have been anything other than intentional. “I would never try and break you. Not of anything, and not ever. But I can’t be like you, either. I can’t see you in pain and not feel the need to erase it. I can’t see you bleeding—”

“Then leave me alone,” Cara instructed, voice a blank slate. “Turn around and go back to your friends. Leave me here with my pain.”

“I can’t do that either,” Kahlan told her, though they both knew it already.

Cara growled, deep and guttural. “Then I can’t help you,” she said simply. “But know that I won’t allow you to help me. I must do what I must, and I will not let you stop me hurting if that is what I wish to do. You can’t protect me, Kahlan, and you cannot heal me from this.”

They were at a stalemate, and every fibre of Kahlan’s being screamed at her to just let Cara have this victory, to turn around and return empty-handed to the cave and leave her companion to her rain-drenched folly and her bloody knuckles. She would be relinquishing her dignity, true, and her compassion as well... but she’d be saving herself a few days’ worth of rain-induced fever and the humiliation of spending the entire night staring down Cara and still finding herself bested anyway. Every rational nerve in her body insisted that retreat was the only outcome that made any sense, and she ached to listen to it, but it was simply beyond her power to leave.

She knew Cara too well, and she knew the way Cara’s mind worked. However fervently she argued the point, Cara didn’t truly want to be left alone. She didn’t want to exert herself on the unyielding surface of a motionless tree trunk until one or the other of them collapsed. She wanted blood and thunder – not just to tear things apart, but to be torn apart in kind, to give and receive, inflict and be subjected. She wanted to _fight_.

Gradually, but with purpose, Kahlan tightened her grip on Cara’s hand. She could feel the roughness of cut skin and slowly-swelling bruises, and ignored the kick of empathy in her chest. Now was not the time for softness, or for anything else that might be construed as pity. Now was the time for Kahlan to remember that she wasn’t dealing with a human being; she was dealing with a Mord-Sith.

“Let me...” she repeated, making sure there was no trace of request in the words this time. “Let me clean them, Cara.”

“No.”

There was a flash of something like excitement in Cara’s eyes, and she yanked her hands free with a violence that would have left Kahlan winded if she hadn’t been expecting it. Cara had read the threat in Kahlan’s voice, knew that the Confessor was willing to take what she wanted by force if necessary, and was already poised to defend herself with fists and feet and teeth if she had to. And Kahlan, as perilous as she knew it probably was, would let her.

“Cara,” she said, enunciating each syllable carefully. “If you raise a hand against me, I _will_ fight back. Do you want that?”

She knew the answer before it fell from the Mord-Sith’s lips, shaped around a feral smile. “Yes.”

“Then do it,” she commanded, voice ringing clear as a bell through the cascading rain. “Strike me. Hit me. Make me back down.”

Nothing in the world could have prepared her for what Cara did next; there was no trace of aggression at all, only a gesture of submission. A low (almost wounded) whine escaped her lips as she gazed through the fire-red haze of blood and violence at the woman who had set herself up willingly as a target... and then, visibly using every ounce of self-control she possessed, she stepped back.

“No,” she said. “Richard would never forgive me if I brought you to any harm, whether you asked for it or not. And I’m still sworn to serve him with all of myself. I will not displease him, as much as I may wish to... and as much as you may deserve it.”

Reflexively, Kahlan latched onto that.

“Richard would want me to clean your hands,” she said with the barest ghost of a smile, and watched the aggravation surging back into Cara’s eyes.

“Do not push me, Mother Confessor.”

Kahlan tilted her head, accepting the title without complaint; she supposed she’d asked for it this time. “I wish I knew what to do with you,” she said softly, letting the honesty of it comfort them both. “I wish I knew how to break through to you. Make you see sense. Cara, you’re the most frustrating person—”

“I know,” Cara whispered, and she sounded almost like she meant it. “I know I am.”

At the faint note of acceptance in her voice (the closest she’d ever get to actual submission), Kahlan felt her heart soften. “I just want to help,” she said. “I know you don’t want it, but there’s nothing else I can do for you, Cara, and it breaks my heart to see you like this and know there’s nothing I can do. So, please, even if you don’t want it... let me do it. For me?”

The low hiss that escaped Cara’s lips was one of grudging acquiescence, and she thrust her hands under Kahlan’s nose with far more roughness than the gesture called for. 

“This is not for you,” she insisted sullenly, as if making that point was her only chance of walking away from this with her head still held high. “It’s for Richard. Because we both know, if he were here, he would order me to make you happy.”

Kahlan chuckled; hollow as it was, she would accept that.

Cleaning skinned knuckles wasn’t usually a difficult task, but the pouring rain and Cara’s relentless fidgeting made it more so than it should have been; still, Kahlan refused to let the unpleasant weather conditions sway her, and she made a point of keeping her ministrations as gentle as she could simply because she knew how much it would irritate her companion. She knew just as well that the softness of her touch, the kindness in her eyes, the genuine desire to help would only cause Cara to shift and mumble all the more, but she didn’t care.

Cara ached for her to be rough and unsympathetic, as close to violent as anyone was capable of being when trying to offer generosity, but Kahlan would not let herself become what Cara wanted her to be. What the Mord-Sith wanted and what she truly needed were two different things, and Kahlan had no intention of bowing before the former at the cost of the latter. Cara would be treated with goodness and empathy, and she would be attended to with mercy, whether she wanted it or not.

“There,” she said at last, when she was done, and Cara snatched her hands back as though Kahlan had been a taint on them. “I wish you wouldn’t do things like that, Cara. It’s not good for you.”

“I am a Mord-Sith,” Cara said, for what seemed like the hundredth time. “I do not care what’s _good_ for me.”

Kahlan sighed, and (despite her every instinct urging her not to let Cara win this) surrendered without a word. Frustrating as it was to know that Cara would hold the victory over her, it simply wasn’t worth the effort.

The silence that followed was as tense as it was long, and Kahlan found herself scrabbling for anything to fill it, any means by which she could turn the subject away from Cara’s insistence on injuring herself every single time something upset her. Cara, for her part, stared moodily into the distance and seemed to have blocked out the entire world, and Kahlan especially; it tore at Kahlan’s heart to see her this way, and tore deeper even than that to know that voicing her sadness aloud would be met only with scornful derision and icy disdain.

Truly, it seemed, Cara really didn’t care what was good for her.

“Whatever Zedd did...” Kahlan heard herself insisting softly, feeling the irrepressible need to just say _something_ overwhelm all rational thought, “...he did it because he had to. You know him, Cara. You know he’d never intentionally hurt you, or anyone else. You know he’d—”

“The wizard,” Cara replied, speaking very quietly, “does not understand. Nor does he wish to.”

Acting almost of their own accord, Kahlan’s hands returned to Cara’s, this time inching a slow path upwards until they were cupping her face and forcing her to meet her eyes. She could feel Cara struggling to pull free, to break away from this sudden unwanted moment of intimacy, to flee like the frightened animal she practically was, but Kahlan tightened her grip and held her in place with her eyes and her heart.

“ _I_ wish to,” she breathed meaningfully, and willed Cara to believe her.

For a long time, Cara said nothing; she stood there, muscles tense and twitching beneath Kahlan’s fingertips, gazing deep into her eyes and visibly waging war against herself to keep from running away. Kahlan could feel the desperation within her, the survival instinct she’d lived by for all her life, struggling to make itself heard through what was undoubtedly a cacophony of other thoughts and feelings. She wanted to tear herself free, Kahlan knew, to turn and run, to keep running and running until she collapsed under the sheer weight of exhaustion, certain at last that nobody would ever be able to find her... but, though the need to do so was overwhelming even just in her eyes, she did not succumb. And, for every moment she stayed in place, Kahlan’s faith in her grew stronger.

After what seemed like an eternity, Cara swallowed down a laboured breath. “Do you remember Richard’s birthday party?”

Despite herself, Kahlan smiled. “Of course I do.”

“I wanted...” Cara mumbled, tripping clumsily over the words. “I wanted to... when I thought we would die in that tomb... I wanted... I wanted you to know...”

“I know,” Kahlan soothed, letting the edges of her thumbs trace soothing patterns across the contours of Cara’s face. “I know what you wanted me to know. I know what you wanted to say. And I know that you can’t say it. Even though you want to, I know... I _understand_... that you can’t.”

“You _don’t_ understand!” Cara burst out, that brief flash of vulnerability gone in less than an instant. “You _can’t_ understand. You can’t possibly understand what it’s like to feel... what it’s like to... and not be able...” She broke off, wringing her hands, then turned away.

“Cara...”

“You people have changed me,” Cara went on, ignoring the interruption. “But it’s not enough.”

“Cara,” Kahlan repeated, unable to keep the urgent conviction from touching her voice. “We are so proud of you. All of us, even Zedd. How far you’ve come since you first—”

“Kahlan!”

The word was sharp and rough, but it had the jagged edge of a plea, and it silenced Kahlan immediately.

Slowly, moving as if in great pain, Cara turned back to her, and the haunted intensity in her ocean-coloured eyes stole the breath from Kahlan’s lungs; it was all she could do to keep from lurching forwards and pulling the other woman into an embrace (and damn the inevitably consequences) at the sight of it. She had seen Cara in many different situations, had seen her react to many different things... but she’d never seen such heartache shimmering so close to the surface. Never, in all the time the two had known each other, had Cara allowed the rawest essence of herself to shine through her stoic façade so tangibly, so brutally, and so completely exposed. It was breathtaking.

“I am...” Cara whispered hoarsely, and Kahlan could see how much effort it was taking her just to find the strength to speak at all. “I _was_ among the most ruthless – the most soulless – of all my sisters. I was peerless, Kahlan. I have committed deeds without a second thought that you’d have nightmares just to hear about. And I would do those same deeds again today, if I had to, and still without a second thought.”

“I know that, Cara,” Kahlan snapped, the words coming a little more sharply than she’d intended them to; just because it was true it didn’t mean she wanted to be reminded of the fact.

“But you don’t know _why_ ,” Cara pressed, relentless and tormented. “You don’t know, and you don’t understand, that I am everything I am because of what the wizard had made me.”

“Is one Mord-Sith really so important?” Kahlan asked, hoping that Cara would see the sincere puzzlement in her. “To you, I mean. She’s just one woman. Could her fate really make such a difference?”

“It could,” Cara affirmed, “if it means we would have been trained together. It means I wouldn’t have... I wouldn’t...”

Again, she cut herself off, cursing indistinctly under her breath as words seemed to fail her.

It took far longer than either of them had expected before she summoned strength enough to go on; though she was curious and concerned, Kahlan knew better than to try and push Cara for words that she wasn’t ready to speak, and she stood in silence instead, letting the Mord-Sith know with her eyes (as best she could) that she would wait for all eternity if she needed to. And eternity was certainly what it felt like by the time Cara, in a voice so hushed that Kahlan almost didn’t hear her through the storm, finally found her voice.

“Kahlan...” she managed. “The worst Mord-Sith... the ones capable of the greatest evils... they... _we_...” She closed her eyes, as though frightened of the reaction she would see in Kahlan when she was finished. “...are the ones who are trained _alone_.”

And, with those words, in a moment of sickening clarity, Kahlan understood.

Zedd hadn’t just removed one Mord-Sith from a seemingly endless sisterhood. He hadn’t just changed the future of one little girl, or taken away one of Cara’s no doubt countless sexual conquests. Far from it. He had taken, in his infinite wizardly wisdom, the one person in all the world (whichever world that now was) in whose hands had rested the shattered fragments of Cara’s soul. He had taken, she realised with horrified dread, the only true friend Cara had ever known.

It was little wonder, she realised, that Cara couldn’t bring herself to say that word aloud. She didn’t know what it meant.

“Cara,” Kahlan breathed, surprising herself with how much effort it took to for them name. “I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t understand,” Cara was murmuring, as if she hadn't heard. “These... feelings I have. For you, Kahlan. I don’t understand them. I... I may never be able to tell you...” She closed her eyes, breathing hard, and Kahlan knew better than to expect that particular sentence to find its end. “And that,” Cara went on, drawing strength from the decision to switch focus, “is the wizard’s doing. He took this from me.”

Kahlan’s chest constricted. She wanted to defend Zedd, to speak out in support of his actions and his intentions as she had before (because she knew that, however much pain he had caused, he’d done it because he truly hadn’t had any other choice), but, knowing what she knew now, knowing how broken – figuratively and literally, as was so often the case with Mord-Sith – Cara had been by his efforts to do precisely the opposite, she wasn’t sure that she could. Zedd had only had Cara’s best interests at heart, she knew that as well as she knew her own name, and yet the woman who stood in front of her now was more wounded by the wizard’s best intentions than she had ever been by Darken Rahl’s worst.

As much as she wanted to, she could no more defend Zedd for what he’d done than she could condone Cara resuming her assault on the tree under the delusion that it would make her feel better. And so, she cast the wizard from her mind entirely, focusing instead on what was in front of her.

“This woman betrayed you,” she blurted out, flailing helplessly for anything that might be able to bring Cara back to herself, even just a little. “Before you found out who she was, you were ready to kill her.”

“Before I knew who she was,” Cara repeated, as though that explained the shift in her opinion completely. “But that changes everything.”

Kahlan opened her mouth to ask why, but Cara cut her off with a sharp glare; nodding wordlessly, Kahlan shut her mouth again and waited patiently, watching with combined sorrow and anticipation as Cara sighed and choked down a saturated lungful of rain-thickened air. Once again, it seemed, she was having to dig deep within herself to find the power simply to summon words. It was worrying, and a little frightening, to see her so unbalanced, so tangibly weak.

“If our positions were reversed,” she began, speaking very slowly and very carefully (and, Kahlan guessed, not just because she wanted the explanation to be clear), “I may have done the same. If I was still among my sisters, and my—”

She closed her eyes, and Kahlan was sure she saw a flicker of moisture clinging briefly to her long lashes, moisture that didn’t have anything to do with the thundering downpour, but it was washed away before she could be certain that she hadn’t imagined it.

“Your mate?” she offered quietly, and with great respect, when Cara failed to keep going.

Cara quirked a cynical eyebrow at that word, obviously hating it, though the fact that she didn’t physically lash out at Kahlan for daring to use it in reference to a Mord-Sith told her that it was exactly the right choice.

“If you must call it that,” Cara remarked disdainfully, then pressed on with predictable swiftness. “If she were outcast without my knowledge, and I was given the opportunity... I would do anything within my power to bring her back to her true family.”

Kahlan grimaced. “Mord-Sith aren’t family.”

“I’m telling you how she would have felt!” Cara exploded, sounding positively furious. “She would not have had a year in the company of the Seeker and the Mother Confessor to enlighten her, or the wisdom of a wizard to teach her the error of her former ways. By our standards... by _Mord-Sith_ standards... hers would have been an act of love.”

“Cara...” Kahlan heard herself cry, anguished on her friend’s behalf, and not least of all because Cara seemed to genuinely believe what she was saying. “Love doesn’t involve torture, and it doesn’t involve breaking. It doesn’t involve betrayal, and it doesn’t involve forcing someone to become something they’re not – through the use of dark magic and against their will. If you love someone, you do what’s best for them, even if you get hurt by it. What this woman did to you in that world—”

“—is something you cannot comprehend,” Cara finished for her, and her tone was hard with bitterness. “And, thanks to the wizard’s interference, neither can I.”

Kahlan sighed. This conversation was getting them nowhere but closer to a rain-induced fever. She wanted to ask – to beg, if need be – for Cara to let her take them back to the cave’s shelter, even if it meant enduring Richard and Zedd’s (well-intentioned but thoroughly undesired) meddling, but a single glance into the Mord-Sith’s emotion-darkened eyes told her it would be a futile endeavour. Even if the fury of the elements killed her, Cara had every intention of staying where she was until she’d worked through her conflict... and that meant that Kahlan was staying, too.

“What do you want to do?” she asked, a note of defeat inching its way into her voice, an unspoken acceptance of Cara’s position and her own inability to change it. “Do you want us to find this Dahlia?”

“What good would that do?” Cara demanded, sounding bitter. “Do you truly believe she’d remember me? And even if she does, by some miracle, vaguely recall some foolish little schoolmate from some long-forgotten childhood... what good would it do her to know what I’ve become?” She shook her head, emphatic and decisive. “No, Kahlan. Whatever life she’s been given by the wizard’s interference, she has no place in the company of Mord-Sith.”

“Cara—”

“ _No_ , Kahlan. That is not a burden I will inflict on her. Nor...” And now, Kahlan realised with a certainty that stopped her heart, there were most definitely tears in her eyes. “...will I inflict it upon myself. To see her and know what I might have had in her, or what pitiful existence I may have had if it had been me who was... who...”

Kahlan’s mind flashed briefly to Zedd’s vague but evocative description of the first new world he’d unintentionally conjured, the one that had come into being when he’d unbroken Cara herself; she imagined the wizard would probably be able to outline the latter of Cara’s concerns in no small amount of detail if she only asked him to do so, but she wisely chose not to voice her thoughts aloud. The last thing Cara needed right now, with her mind dulled by pain and feeding on hatred, was another reason to be angry with Zedd.

“Then what?” she asked instead, tenderness colouring her voice and making Cara back away in near-tangible discomfort. “Do you want us to try and undo the spell?”

“No.” It was the most certainty Cara had mustered that night. “I will not have the world turned upside-down again for the sake of my foolish weakness.”

“You’re not weak, Cara,” Kahlan told her, and was unable to recall a moment when she’d ever meant anything more.

“Then why do I feel it?”

It was intended as a demand, Kahlan knew, as all of Cara’s questions were. She’d meant it as a wry counterpoint, deliberately designed to contradict and undermine the legendary empathy of the Mother Confessor in the vain hope that she’d ultimately just give up and walk away... but, despite Cara’s best efforts, all Kahlan heard was the helpless plea of a little girl.

She didn’t know what to say. Half of Cara, she knew, wanted nothing more than for her to admit defeat and concede that there was something she couldn’t fix, that there were questions in the world that even Kahlan Amnell could not answer. The rest, though – the part that Cara would deny to her grave – that part wanted to be comforted, really and truly comforted, like the innocent child that had been stripped and broken so long ago. Kahlan could see it in her eyes, so close to the surface that it blocked out even the pelting rain, and the presence of such unfettered helplessness in the one person she’d never have expected it in stole her heart along with the dregs of her breath.

“You’re not weak,” she heard herself repeat, and some corner of her mind couldn’t help wondering what good it would do. “You’re not weak, Cara. You’re not weak.”

Cara turned away again; this time, rather than being borne of anger or frustration, the abrupt motion seemed to come because she was physically incapable of meeting Kahlan’s gaze right then. Kahlan barely had a moment to wonder why; almost immediately, Cara’s shoulders began to tremble, seemingly beyond even her considerable restraint, and Kahlan felt her chest clench painfully at the sight of it. She allowed herself to wonder (though she suspected she knew the answer) whether Cara was crying or merely chilled by the rain, but knew better than to dare try and ask that question aloud. In fact, she knew better than to try and do anything at all, and opted instead to simply stand in respectful silence for as long as it took Cara to gather what self-control she needed.

When she finally spoke again, it was without turning back; Kahlan was deeply saddened by the fact, but had far too much respect for the Mord-Sith to try and force her to meet her eyes again if she didn’t want to. If Cara wanted to pretend that she was alone for this, if that fantasy would help her to harness the strength she needed to say what needed to be said, then Kahlan would support her completely and without question.

“I want the wizard dead for what he did,” Cara grated, the words uttered so quietly that Kahlan had to strain to hear them. “I would be perfectly justified in killing him for what he has done to me.”

Kahlan said nothing. Even if she knew what to say, she wasn’t entirely sure she could speak.

“I want him dead,” Cara said again, haltingly this time, all pretence of outrage long gone from her by now. “But I know, if I tried, I wouldn’t be able to finish him. I would falter, and I would fail, just as I failed to end you when you were in the Con Dar. I could not do what needed to be done then, and I know just as well that I would fail to kill the wizard too, if I tried now.”

Her shoulders heaved, and Kahlan bit down hard on the inside of her cheek to stop herself reaching out. That, she knew, would do neither of them any good. Cara would recoil from the tender touch, and Kahlan would lose her completely. Better, she decided (though it pained her), to keep a respectful distance and wait for Cara to work through her thoughts alone.

“Kahlan,” she went on after a pained moment, tormented and broken, “I am too _weak_ to kill a pathetic old man who deserves it for what he did.”

“Cara—”

“I don’t know...” the Mord-Sith went on, ignoring Kahlan’s hopeless plea. “I don’t know how to reconcile that with who I am. I don’t know how to...” She exhaled. “When I think of it, I fear it will kill me.” Her shoulders heaved again, seemingly in spasm. “It tears me apart just to think of it.”

“Cara,” Kahlan repeated, a little more firmly this time, and stepped forwards; she didn’t touch Cara, but she made sure that the other woman was aware of her nearness. “It’s all right. You’re confused, you’re—”

“ _Kahlan_.”

With more speed than Kahlan thought possible from a mere mortal, Cara whirled around. Her eyes were decidedly wet (a wetness that Kahlan knew for certain this time had nothing whatsoever to do with the spattering rain), but shone with urgency, and she reached out to grip Kahlan’s arms as if they were all that was anchoring her to the world. Her grasp was tight, excruciatingly so, but Kahlan refused to let herself complain, even as Cara’s mouth dropped open in a gasping, prayerful whisper.

“It’s the same thing I feel when I look at you.”

For the second time in what seemed like as many minutes (and possibly less even than that), Kahlan was at a loss for words. She knew well enough that she needed to say something, anything, even if it would only cause Cara more pain than she was already in... but her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth, and she could scarcely even draw breath.

Thankfully, Cara wasn’t done.

“I no longer understand my own mind,” she choked, then quickly composed herself, as if the slip had never happened. “I haven’t for a long time. But this... what the wizard has done to me... this changes everything.”

“How?” Kahlan asked. There was no accusation in the question, only curiosity.

“You saw the way he was staring at me,” Cara said, a simple statement of fact. “You heard his words. I’m not the Cara he knows. He knows a different Cara, a Cara who was broken with Dahlia, and who was intimate with her. That Cara... maybe... maybe _she_ understands. Maybe she knows what it is to feel these things and not be torn apart by them.”

“She doesn’t exist,” Kahlan reminded her, feeling the sorrow clawing at her back.

“But she did,” Cara insisted. “The wizard knew her.”

Kahlan sighed; she couldn’t argue with that, and she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to. The rain was as relentless as Cara’s ramblings, and was beginning to gather uncomfortably deep in her boots; as genuinely as she wished to play the empathetic friend and support Cara through her masochistic mumblings, she also wanted to get back into the warmth and sanctuary of the cave. More than that, though, she wanted to make sure that Cara came with her; if she spent much longer out here, she could tell that even the headstrong Mord-Sith would be felled by fever for days, and that was a weight Kahlan had no intention of bearing upon her conscience.

Of course, it was obvious even to one who didn’t know her as well as Kahlan did that Cara would only return to the cave on her own terms, and the Mother Confessor worked her mind for a way to make that so. Arguing, pointing out that Zedd’s knowledge was of no use to anyone but him, would meet only with aggression and possibly violence (though Kahlan couldn’t deny she’d welcome that just then, if it gave her a legitimate reason to render Cara unconscious and carry her back to the cave)... but agreeing with Cara’s maudlin mumblings would only encourage her to keep dwelling on things that had never happened to her until they both drowned.

As she mused on the easiest way to ensure Cara’s compliance without actually asking for it (or, worse, trying to demand it), Kahlan stepped lithely across the clearing to gather the Mord-Sith’s discarded gloves from where they still lay on the rain-soaked forest floor; she let the heavy weight of the saturated material rest in her hands for a few long moments, drawing strength from the earthen smell of wet leather and fresh rain, before returning to Cara’s side and wordlessly handing them back. Cara took them, nodding her thanks, but made no effort to put them back on; Kahlan supposed they were probably too drenched to wear, having been out in the rain as long as Cara had, and being far more prone to absorb water than the Mord-Sith’s skin (however much thicker the latter may have been).

“You must be soaked,” Kahlan heard herself murmur as the realisation struck that the gloves were not the only article of drenched leather that Cara was wearing.

Cara shrugged. “I’ll survive.”

“I know you will,” Kahlan said, hoping that even the tiniest sliver of the faith she had in her friend would have shone through in that small statement. “You’re strong.”

“I don’t feel strong,” Cara admitted, very quietly.

“I know,” Kahlan sighed. The urge to pull the shorter woman into her arms and hug her until they both drowned was almost overwhelming, and she latched onto the first question she could think of to keep from embracing such a foolhardy whim. “So, then, what do you want to do?”

It was the second time she’d asked that exact question, but this time, Cara met her hopeful curiosity with eyes that blazed rich and raw with tearful determination, and Kahlan found herself almost lost to the intensity of them. She would do anything Cara asked of her in that moment, unmindful of whether it was sensible or not, and she had no time to stop and wonder where such an impulse had come from before Cara was speaking... whimpering, demanding, pleading, and a thousand other things all at once, voice low but carrying even through the storm, alight with helpless urgency.

“I want to _remember_.”


	3. Chapter 3

By the time they made their way back to the cave, the rain was coming down even harder than it had been when they’d first sought shelter. Kahlan’s outfit was clinging with waterlogged stubbornness to her drenched and frozen skin, and she could tell from the occasional sideways glances she cast at the grumbling Mord-Sith that Cara’s attire was more uncomfortable even than her own. Still, neither of them uttered a word of complaint... or, indeed, said much of anything at all as they made their way through the saturated overgrowth, settling instead into an amicable (albeit slightly tense) silence.

Richard, by direct contrast, was more than willing to lament (using a broad spectrum of colourful language and an ever-increasing volume) just how wet his two companions were. He barely even waited for them to completely escape the downpour before diving on Kahlan, grabbing the nearest available article of dry fabric and trying (in his well-intentioned, if overbearing, way) to wrap it around her shoulders.

“You’re soaked!” he cried unnecessarily.

“It is a common bi-product of torrential rain,” Cara informed him, folding her arms.

Kahlan chuckled. “We’re fine, Richard.”

He didn’t look at all convinced (and, given what they must have looked like, soaked through and freezing, Kahlan supposed she couldn’t really blame him for that), but he seemed to know them both well enough to change the subject. Releasing her from his impassioned grasp with obvious reluctance, he swiftly turned his attention to Cara.

“You could have been killed!” he barked.

“By a little rain?” she shot back, quirking a cynical eyebrow.

“By your own lack of common sense!”

Despite herself, Kahlan couldn’t quite keep from laughing. The point was a serious one, she knew that perfectly well, and she honestly had no idea whose side she truly wanted to take in the argument (Richard was, of course, right, but Cara was reeling from the sort of news that should have sparked some small degree of empathy in the Seeker), but there was just something inexplicably comedic that surfaced in Richard and Cara whenever they started launching at each other’s throats over things as childish as this.

Richard, being Richard, was simultaneously concerned and infuriated, and had no idea whatsoever how to voice either one of those emotions without letting the other one get in the way... while Cara, for reasons that thoroughly eluded Kahlan, had a habit of turning into a petulant puppy every time she fell out of the Seeker’s favour (whether intentionally or otherwise), and seemed to decide that the best way of validating herself was to argue repeatedly with every single word he said. Between them, it was not unlike watching a disagreement between two disobedient schoolchildren over a particular coloured crayon.

Blessedly (or perhaps rather unfortunately, as Kahlan couldn’t deny that she was enjoying the unexpected levity), the moment was interrupted by Zedd before it could escalate into hair-pulling and name-calling. Evidently still feeling guilty about what he’d done (Kahlan couldn’t deny the rush of anger on Cara’s behalf that surged through her at the sight of him, and knew that Cara must be feeling it a thousand times more powerfully), he stepped between the aggravated Seeker and his equally-irate charge, and held up his hands in a gesture that was clearly meant to be one of peacekeeping. Coming from him, though, it looked just like surrender.

“It doesn’t matter, Richard,” he said, cutting them both off with practiced swiftness. “What matters is that she’s back now, and she’s safe.” He turned, not missing a beat, to smile at Kahlan. “And thank you, my dear, for bringing her back safely to us.”

Kahlan shrugged in acknowledgement of the gratitude, though she could tell that Zedd saw right through the too-casual indifference on her face and into the unease that lay beneath. The smile, as tight as it had been, fell from his face like a leaf from an autumn tree, and he huffed an unhappy sigh. For all his willingness to play the fool at inopportune times, Kahlan knew that the wizard was a deeply perceptive man, and it struck her with simultaneous sorrow and malice to know that she was causing him to feel so much self-loathing; he deserved it, she knew, but he looked so broken by the fact that she couldn’t ignore the way his eyes tugged at her heart.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, and Kahlan wasn’t immediately sure which of the two women he was speaking to. “Truly. If there had been another way...”

“Save it, wizard,” Cara interrupted, voice like ice-edged stone. “I do not wish to hear it.”

“Zedd,” Kahlan interjected smoothly, stepping between the two before any harm could come to either. “I don’t think an apology is going to fix the damage this time. What you did...”

“I know,” Zedd acknowledged, gazing balefully at Cara. “But there’s nothing else I can offer. If I were to try and undo the spell a second time, the damage could be—”

“ _Save it_ , wizard,” Cara repeated, this time in a heated snarl.

“Cara,” Kahlan said, as gently as she dared (which, given the way Cara looked ready to slaughter anyone or anything that dared look sympathetically at her, wasn’t very). “It’s all right. I’m here.”

Snorting derisively, Cara promptly turned her glare on Kahlan. “I can see that, Mother Confessor,” she drawled.

Kahlan rolled her eyes, ignoring the cut of the title; she knew Cara well enough to know that she was trying her best to aggravate her into abandoning the effort to help, and Kahlan had no intention of allowing that to happen. If Cara wanted to sabotage herself, that was her own business, but Kahlan was not willing to just stand idly by and watch it happen, however desperately the Mord-Sith seemed to ache for it. Cara was more than welcome to implode in her own time, if she so desired, but Kahlan would not allow it for as long as she herself was conscious.

“I’m here,” she repeated, with purpose. “And I’ve got this. Do yourself some good for once in your life, Cara, and just let me—”

“I don’t need your help,” Cara snapped, spiteful.

Kahlan sighed, but refused to let herself be baited by the moody Mord-Sith. Cara unfolded her arms, balling her hands into fists at her sides, glaring like a chastened infant under her mother’s scrutiny. Well, Kahlan decided with no small amount of bemusement, if Cara wanted to behave like a child, she would also be treated like one.

“ _Cara_ ,” she repeated, in a tone that made it perfectly clear that complaint was not an option. “Shut _up_.”

Cara growled, the knuckles of her still-bare fists turning white and trembling with barely-repressed rage... but ultimately, and wisely, she chose to do as she was told. Kahlan could see how much the acquiescence was costing her, and might have offered a genuine applause under different circumstances, but, right then, she was simply too relieved that Cara wasn’t going to play her own worst enemy to say anything about it.

Instead, not wanting to waste a single moment of the undoubtedly brief time she’d been granted to take control of the volatile situation, she turned swiftly back to Zedd, eyes wide and intense with what she hoped would read as optimism.

“You can’t take back what you’ve done,” she said, choosing her words carefully, though she knew he’d see right through them anyway and cut straight to the heart of her true (and deeply conflicted) feelings. “But what you did to her... you took something she needs. There’s a part of her in this woman, this Dahlia. It’s not something you can just apologise for and hope it all goes away in the morning.”

Zedd nodded sadly, as if he’d expected those words from the very moment he’d admitted to what he’d done. “She’s not the Cara I know,” he affirmed softly. “She’s close... so close that I almost didn’t notice at first... but she’s...”

He trailed off, turning his gaze on Cara, and Kahlan silently willed him not to say anything directly to her; the instant she was addressed, Kahlan knew, the Mord-Sith would dive headfirst upon the wizard with every last insult she’d been holding back (and, quite possible, with her still-clenched fists as well). The damage she had done to her knuckles while assaulting the tree would be nothing next to the damage she would do to Zedd’s face if he gave her even the tiniest excuse to jump on him, and Kahlan could only stand there and pray that the wizard realised that.

“I want to help,” he said simply.

Those three words were, painfully and predictably, all the invitation Cara needed. Fast as lightning, she lashed out, grabbing him by the collar of his robes almost too quickly for Kahlan’s eye to follow. She took a small, cautious step forward, ready to intercept if she needed to, and saw Richard shift to do the same from where he stood. The Seeker looked anxious, almost nervous, one hand already resting tensely on the handle of his sword, and Kahlan couldn’t blame him one bit for the gesture. Cara was unpredictable enough when she was in a good mood; as homicidal as she was just then, even the unflappable Mother Confessor was frightened of what she might do if left unchecked.

“Then help!” she was roaring at Zedd, voice cracking through the cave’s stone walls; if not for the scarcely-audible note of desperation in her voice, it would have sounded just like a threat. “Help me then, wizard! Help me to understand. Let me know the Cara you knew. Make me _remember_.”

It was the closest thing to overt emotion that Kahlan had ever seen Cara willingly exhibit in front of Richard, and she heard the sharp intake of breath as the Seeker absorbed what he was seeing. Ignoring him, and Kahlan as well, Cara tightened the vicelike grip she had on Zedd’s robes, drawing him in closer, letting him gaze deep into her eyes and see her for the first time. Not the phantom of a Cara he’d known in a different world, and not the conjured unbroken Cara that he’d created from thin air when he had unwittingly removed the Mord-Sith magic from her veins... but the Cara that was, the Cara that he himself had created and could not destroy now, the Cara whose very existence was now tainted by the magic he had cast on someone who was no more. The Cara he was stuck with, whether he liked it or not.

“Wizard,” she begged, breathing heavily. “Let me see what you see when you look at me. Let me feel what _she_ felt when she looked at Dahlia.” Every inch of her was shaking, whether from the cold or the weight of her emotions, Kahlan didn’t know, but she characteristically pushed herself to go on as though the spasms were little more than a minor irritation. “You owe me this, wizard.”

Tentatively, Zedd reached up one hand to cover hers where she still gripped him.

“Why?” he asked her, with a gentleness that was beyond even his usual.

He looked almost as though he was afraid of somehow breaking whatever spell of vulnerability seemed to have woven itself around the twitching Mord-Sith if he dared to raise his voice above a whisper, and Kahlan couldn’t blame him for that. Seeing Cara so exposed was so rare, it was breathtaking; even caused by unintentional pain as it was now, it was too precious a gift to throw away.

“She hurt you, Cara,” Zedd went on tentatively. “She betrayed you, and she hurt you. You don’t want to re-live that. You don’t want to remember what she did, or what her treachery allowed Rahl to do to you. The magic they used to break you...”

“I know what they did,” Cara said, voice ringing with crystalline clarity. “You’ve told me. ‘Insidious dark magic’, or other such Underworld absurdity. It’s not enough to change my mind.” Her eyes were blazing, bright enough almost to light up the airless cave. “I need this, wizard. I need to remember. And, if it means I must remember what Darken Rahl did to turn me against Richard, then so be it. I will endure it willingly.”

Zedd looked as though somebody had ripped his heart, still beating, from his chest. “Are you truly in that much pain?”

“You cannot begin to understand the pain I’m in,” Cara told him, without so much as a heartbeat’s worth of hesitation. “This is your mistake, wizard. Make it right.”

For a few long minutes, Zedd simply studied her. He didn’t ask her any more questions (at least, not aloud, though Kahlan could tell he was getting all the answers he wanted from the hollow void behind her eyes); Cara knew what she was asking, she understood the good and the bad and everything in between, and she was telling Zedd everything without having to utter a single word.

Kahlan felt her lungs constrict simply from watching their silent exchange, and her heart beat ever more quickly with every moment it went on. She wasn’t even sure if what Cara wanted was possible, but part of her supposed that it must be; they all knew Zedd well enough to know that he wouldn’t waste any of their time on allowing Cara to hope and beg for something that could not be achieved, and Kahlan knew that he would have told her it was impossible the very instant she’d first raised the subject, if it was. The thought that Cara might just get what she asked for, that she might be able to live and breathe the memories of a Cara who would be so much like her and yet so very different, filled the Mother Confessor with a surge of simultaneous anticipation and irrepressible worry.

Eventually, after what seemed like a lifetime wherein even the cave itself seemed to hold its breath, Cara lost her patience and pulled Zedd’s hand off hers. “Well?” she demanded. “Speak, wizard!”

“It’s possible,” Zedd admitted, sluggishly thoughtful. “But it’s not easy, Cara, and I can’t promise there won’t be complications.”

“Complications,” Cara snorted, waving a dismissive hand.

“I’m serious,” Zedd told her, and Kahlan could tell by the haunted look on his face that he truly was. “Magic of this sort is volatile at best, Cara, and completely unpredictable at worst. The damage—”

“Damage?” Cara echoed, barking a short laugh and cutting him viciously off. “You’ve rewritten my entire life, wizard, twice... and you’re lecturing me about the ‘damage’ that may be caused by _this_? By some _memories_?”

“They’re memories of things that didn’t happen,” Zedd reminded her. “Memories of events you never lived through, suffering you never endured... emotions you never felt.”

“Because of you!” Cara shouted, and the cave shook.

Thankfully for the wizard, Richard chose that moment to step in and put a stop to the discussion before it escalated beyond salvation. Kahlan breathed a sigh of relief as he dropped a heavy hand onto Cara’s shoulder, silencing her without so much as a word, and carefully tugged her away from the hapless wizard. Cara’s eyes blazed defiantly, and Kahlan could see that, had it been anyone but the Lord Rahl, she would have protested (and, no doubt, drawn blood in the process); because it was Richard, of course, she acquiesced with little more than a faint growl of frustrated protest.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Richard said, and Kahlan admired the seamless blend of compassion and authority in his tone.

Cara’s eyes widened, then darkened. Briefly, it looked as though she would bow her head and obey, just as she did whenever Richard ordered her to do anything, by sheer force of habit (to say little of the devotion that had been beaten into her from childhood), but this time was different. This time, it was personal, and Kahlan could see the determination, the aching need, tearing the Mord-Sith asunder from within, and she knew that even Richard wouldn’t be able to hold her back from what she wanted.

It took a moment, but when she finally found it within herself to challenge the one man whose authority was worth more to her than her own life, it was cataclysmic.

“Richard,” she said, meeting his gaze with deliberate defiance. “ _Lord Rahl_. I have served you well, and I will continue to serve you for as long as there is breath in my lungs. I have followed you to the ends of the world, and I would do so a hundred times more if you commanded it, without hesitation.”

Her breathing was growing ragged again, and Kahlan found herself willing her not to falter. _Not now_.

“I have proven myself loyal to you,” she went on after a moment, “in spite of everything that you and your people expected of me. I have helped you and the Mother Confessor, and even the wizard, again and again. I have saved your lives and risked my own. I have been your bodyguard, your protector, your servant, and your companion. I have put my life on the line, more times than any of us can count, for all of you. I have done everything you have asked of me, and much more besides. I am yours, Richard.”

It was true, every word, and Kahlan’s heart stopped beating.

“But this is not about you,” Cara pressed. “I have served you selflessly, as it is a Mord-Sith’s place to serve the Lord Rahl, and I have never once asked anything of you in return. You are the Lord Rahl, and the Seeker, and you are a good man. I will never question that. Never, Richard, and if you deny me this, know that I’ll continue to serve you with the same dedication I always have. But know also that your wizard has taken something from me, and understand that I am within my right to ask for it back.”

“Cara...” Zedd started, but Cara, and everyone else, ignored him.

“I’m not asking that he change the world again...” She growled, deep and low and dangerous, as though the mere thought caused her stomach to turn. “I did not ask him to do that the first time, either, nor the second... but he did it anyway, for the greater good and for the good of your quest. And I am the one who paid the price. For you, Richard. My life was destroyed, twice over, so that yours might not be.”

“It’s not as simple as that!” Zedd cried out, and it was almost a prayer.

“But the result is the same,” Cara remarked, never taking her eyes off the Seeker. “My very being was changed, twice, so that you might succeed in your quest. I would have it changed a third time, if you needed me to, because you are the Lord Rahl and you are Richard and I would give anything within my power to aid you.”

She bowed her head for a moment, seemingly overwhelmed, and Kahlan could see the truth of her words shining behind her eyes.

“But your quest is over now,” she reminded them all. “It’s done, and it’s finished, and I am... Richard, I am asking you for this.” She closed her eyes, and that tiny gesture somehow managed to hold her three companions even more deeply in her thrall than when they’d been open. “For the first time in as long as we’ve known each other, I am asking you for something. Your quest is complete, and you have the Mother Confessor as your reward. Allow me to have this as mine. Let me claim back some fragment of what has been stolen from me.”

Richard’s hand lowered from her shoulder, sliding down her arm to gently cup her elbow; Kahlan could tell he was thrown by the voracity of her speech, but he was far too driven (far too _Richard_ ) to let himself be swayed completely by it.

“What good would it do?” he asked, sincere.

Suddenly angry, Cara tore her arm free; it was obvious from the look on her face that she felt her case had been made, and that her reasons for wanting this should never have been brought into question. She had asked her Lord Rahl for something, and, so far as she was concerned, his only duty was to either grant it or deny it. From her flawed perspective, it was no more the Lord Rahl’s place to dissect the desires of his Mord-Sith than it was the Mord-Sith’s job to question the Lord Rahl’s orders. Neither party could ever comprehend the other, and so there was little point in ever trying.

Ever the diplomat, Kahlan cleared her throat before Cara could voice any of those things aloud. “Richard I think...”

“Kahlan,” he said, “if she’s going to do this—”

“— _she_ needs to understand it,” she finished for him, raising a hand to end his train of thought. “You don’t need to know why she wants it. Neither do I, and neither does Zedd. This is personal, Richard, and it’s something that none of us except Cara can, or should, try to understand.”

“I just want her to think about what she’ll be doing to herself... all the hurt she’ll be putting herself through, and for what?”

“For herself,” Kahlan told him. “For the first time in her life.”

Richard exhaled tightly; Kahlan could see the conflict on the Seeker’s face, and it tore at her heart to see him so troubled. A large part of him, she knew, wanted to protect Cara from herself, to keep her safe from her masochistic urges and her tendencies to run headlong into troubles that she didn’t take the time to weigh before they crushed her; the rest of him, in sharp contrast, knew that Kahlan was right. Cara needed to do this, not out of loyalty and not for the salvation of the world, but because it was something _she_ needed. Richard would never understand, and neither would Zedd; even Kahlan (whose conversation with Cara had left her far more open than either of the men to empathise with what Cara was going through) couldn’t quite wrap her head all the way around it, but all three of them knew that she needed it just as surely as she needed oxygen.

“Richard,” Cara said, when the silence stretched on too far, and his name was a plea and the ghost of a demand at the same time.

Richard sighed, turning to Zedd. “If you were to do this... what would you need?”

Much to Kahlan’s consternation, the wizard seemed to have aged several centuries over the course of the brief discussion; he looked wan and weary, and she was just about to suggest that he sit down and rest a little before trying to answer when he shrugged a fragile shoulder.

“Rest,” he answered simply, and even the lone syllable seemed to cost him greatly.

“Wizard...” Cara warned him, dangerous and breathless.

“I’m serious,” Zedd said, and every inch of him was suddenly alight with the kind of authority that Kahlan often forgot he was capable of. “If I’m to do this – against my better judgement, I might add – it’s not going to be in a dank cave in the middle of nowhere. We’ll rest, and then we’ll continue on to the nearest town, where we’ll have a good meal and a proper bed.” Once again, Cara’s mouth was open in a half-growled protest, but Zedd silenced her with a pointed look. “This isn’t a painless spell, Cara, and its effects aren’t brief. If it’s going to be done, I won’t let it be done here when there are more suitable alternatives open to us. It will be done somewhere peaceful and quiet, somewhere _safe_ , or it won’t be done at all.”

Kahlan was fairly sure she’d never seen Cara look quite so murderous as she did just then... and, given the number of D’Haran soldiers and resurrected banelings she’d slaughtered in just the previous week alone, that was a uniquely terrifying thought.

“Zedd’s right,” Richard insisted, silencing any protests the Mord-Sith might have voiced, and cutting off any action she might have been about to take. “With the Keeper defeated, we’ve got nothing but time, and these memories of yours aren’t going anywhere. Besides, spell or no spell, we could all use a good night’s sleep in a proper tavern for once.”

There could be no arguing with that. Kahlan could feel the heat of Cara’s scowl as it turned in her direction, hoping against hope that the Mother Confessor would again speak out in her defence, but Kahlan couldn’t deny the sense in what Zedd and Richard had said. If Cara was intent on having a spell cast on her (even if it was just a simple spell of remembering), it was nothing short of foolish to have it done in the cave when, for the first time in almost as long as Kahlan could remember, all the Midlands lay open and friendly at their feet. This was not the time, nor the place, for Cara’s trademark impatience.

It didn’t surprise anyone at all when Cara insisted on taking first watch, and Kahlan knew before she even put her head down on the unwelcoming ground that the Mord-Sith would use every trick she had to ensure she took the second and third watches as well. Cara didn’t want to sleep at all, Kahlan could see that as clear as the moonlight on her face, and she supposed she couldn’t blame her stubborn companion for that. If she herself had learned what Cara had that day, she doubted sleep would have been on her list of priorities either.

Still, she worried about her.

Kahlan went through the motions of preparing herself for rest, as was expected of her, but she knew well enough that sleep was going to evade her just as certainly as it would evade Cara. Her mind played, over and over again, the myriad expressions that had poured their way across Cara’s face like spilt paint as she’d talked about her own evil deeds – about the soullessness that had been so fundamental a part of her life – the remorse she’d seen there, genuine, pure, and true. Everything that Cara had once been was now all that she hated. Kahlan should have been proud of her, but all she felt was sorrow at the pain her inner conflict had caused, and bitterness at Zedd for having made her so conflicted in the first place.

It had been so much simpler when Cara was just Cara, when her crimes were her own and her past was hers. The last thing any of them needed (and Cara herself more so than anyone) was for her to start imagining a world where even her most unforgivable Mord-Sith self had been softer. She’d come so far, become so much... it wasn’t fair that she was finding herself forced to second-guess herself now, and Kahlan’s heart ached beyond comfort for her.

Despite her best efforts to contain it, she felt a heavy sigh wrestle itself free from her throat as she lay down. It was soft (scarcely more than an elevated breath, really), but it was enough to call her unease to Richard’s attention, and she closed her eyes in wordless frustration as the Seeker inched his bedroll closer to hers.

“Kahlan?” he inquired, a murmur intended for her ears only. “You okay?”

Under normal circumstances, she would have welcomed the distraction of his calming presence; she would have allowed herself the luxury of leaning into his embrace, of letting him wrap her up in his strength and his warmth and the rich earthy scent of him, all the things she loved about him. Some small part of her still wanted to submit to that, to let him stem the tide of her worries and her fears with his words and his body, but a much larger part knew that it wouldn’t happen. He couldn’t help her with this, and he couldn’t take away the burden of what Kahlan had seen in Cara’s face.

“I’m fine,” she told him, though she knew he’d see right through the hollow assurance.

Richard gave her a sad, knowing smile, and leaned in. For all her faith that he wouldn’t be able to kiss away this particular anxiety, Kahlan nonetheless felt her breathing even out as his lips ghosted across her cheek. It was a small gesture, reflexive and completely lacking in any kind of intent, but it touched her even so, despite her best efforts to sustain a safe distance.

“I’m worried, too,” Richard informed her, and the genuineness in his voice moved her more even than the gesture. “But Zedd knows what he’s doing, even if Cara doesn’t.”

“I know,” she sighed, though she didn’t truly believe that Zedd was in any condition to know what he was doing, any more than Cara was.

She let her gaze dart from Richard’s compassionate eyes to the stoic silhouette of the Mord-Sith where she’d taken up position at the mouth of the cave; she wondered briefly if Cara could hear the conversation, as far away as she was from them, and decided that she didn’t want to know. It wouldn’t make very much of a difference, really; there was nothing in Richard’s words, or in Kahlan’s own thoughts, that Cara wasn’t already intimately acquainted with, even if she could hear them. And, if she was listening to their discussion, Kahlan rather suspected that it wouldn’t evoke much more than a disdainful eye-roll anyway.

“She’s Cara,” Richard insisted. “If any one of us can bounce back from something like this, it’s her.”

His fingertips were tracing intoxicating patterns across her upper arm, and Kahlan suddenly found it difficult to string together a cohesive thought in spite of her heart’s continued insistences that this wouldn’t help anyone.

“She’s been through worse,” he went on, apparently sensing the way she was beginning to falter. “You know she has.”

Kahlan shook her head, and Richard’s movements stilled as she raised her hand to cup his face. She looked deep into his eyes, willing him to see in hers what she’d seen in Cara’s even though she knew it was impossible.

“I’m not so sure she has,” she admitted softly. “She looked so lost, Richard... so lost that she didn’t even care if I saw it. I’ve never seen her like that before. She’s not just angry... she’s...”

“Broken?” he breathed, and her heart skipped a beat at that word.

Hating herself for it, she gave an unhappy nod. “Broken.”

It may have been her imagination, but she was sure she saw the Cara-shaped silhouette at the other end of the cave flinch ever so slightly.

Blissfully oblivious, Richard was looking thoughtful. “I have faith in her,” he murmured, and Kahlan felt a smile tug at the corners of her lips at that; if Cara was indeed listening, Kahlan had some idea of just how much Richard’s faith would mean to her. “Zedd’ll cast the spell,” he went on, “and she’ll find what she needs. It’ll all be fine.”

“I hope so.”

Richard smiled, that self-assured smile that was all Seeker and made it impossible to not believe in him completely.

“I’m sure of it,” he told her, and Kahlan found herself returning his smile in spite of herself; how did he always manage to bring out the best of her, seemingly with no effort at all?

“Thank you,” she whispered with a sincerity that she hoped he’d be able to sense, and leaned in to devour his lips.

It would have been easy for the two of them to get carried away, and Kahlan felt their kisses intensify almost immediately; with the immediate crises apparently averted Richard’s intentions were obvious, and Kahlan knew that she should have been sharing his growing frenzy, but she wasn’t.

After so long spent loving each other from a careful distance, always wanting but never truly able to consummate what everyone knew they shared, it should have been natural to steal every possible moment of solitude now that they could. Zedd was already fast asleep, snoring audibly from across the cave, and Kahlan knew perfectly well that, the instant she allowed things to intensify with Richard, Cara would conveniently find something worthy of her attention far enough away to give the two of them more than sufficient privacy.

The adjustment hadn’t been an easy one, but it had been worthwhile. After so long, the physicality was little more than a formality. Oh, it had had more than its share of complications, there was no denying that... but, ultimately, it was just an act. An act that cemented, but did not change, the relationship that had been blossoming within them for almost as long as they’d known each other. Kahlan was grateful for it, of course, and, under any other circumstances, perhaps she would have indulged in the desire that she could feel coursing like blood through Richard’s veins and threatening to seep into her own... but, just then, physicality was the very last thing she needed.

“Richard,” she heard herself panting as his kisses began to descend down the column of her throat, and she felt his addictive smile tickling the sensitive flesh there. “Richard, not now.”

To his credit, he stopped instantly, pulling his head up so fast she was astounded he didn’t give himself whiplash.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, and Kahlan almost laughed at that; for all his talents as Seeker of Truth, he was still a clueless male.

“Nothing,” she assured him, smiling with more warmth than she truly felt. “But not tonight. I’m sorry, but...”

He exhaled softly but didn’t argue, and he expertly kept the disappointment from touching his features. “All right,” he conceded, letting his arms slip down to loosely circle her waist in a tender but intention-free embrace. “Not tonight.”

They lay there together for a few long minutes, Richard’s breathing peaceful and even against her back, and Kahlan willed his relaxed state to bleed into her. His arm was heavy but unrestrictive where it lay across her, and his chest rose and fell against her back in sleepy rhythm; he wasn’t quite asleep, but she knew he was well on his way there, and ached to join him. She was tired, though she was just as certain now as she had been before that she would find herself unable to sleep, no matter how tired she was, and she struggled to draw some kind of strength from the warm blanket of Richard’s presence around her.

It was impossible, though, and as suddenly as the momentary calm had descended upon her, Kahlan found herself lying there helplessly as it evaporated before her eyes. Richard had succeeded in easing her qualms for a moment or two, but it hadn’t lasted; she had known it wouldn’t, but that didn’t stop her heart skipping a beat as she realised that she was just as doomed as she had been before he’d started. 

It wasn’t supposed to be this way, her heart cried; Richard had always been able to soothe her, and he had always been able to assure her – even in the darkest places – that there was hope to be found somewhere, if only they could seek it out. It wasn’t supposed to be temporary, and it wasn’t supposed to be fleeting; when it came from Richard, it was supposed to endure. She was supposed to believe him forever, not just for a few short moments.

And yet, every fibre of her being had known it would be like this. She’d known, even in the instant she had let herself be warmed by his presence, even as she had allowed herself to drown in his strength and his kisses and his compassion. She’d known, even if she hadn’t wanted to admit it. Because, as completely as Richard had her heart, he didn’t have her mind that night. He was within her, body and soul, but he wasn’t in her thoughts.

Dark against the misty cave mouth, Cara’s silhouette hadn’t moved; if Kahlan didn’t know better, she might almost have believed that she was seeing a statue instead of a person. She knew Cara better than that, though, and she’d seen too many times how adept the Mord-Sith was at keeping perfectly (almost inhumanly) still when she wanted to. She was completely alert, Kahlan knew that too, but the stillness was deliberate and it was purposeful.

Cara wanted to be invisible. She wanted to be as unseen – as unknown – as possible, both by any potential enemies who might be lurking in the storm, and by her so-called friends. She wanted to be lost, to disappear amidst the elements. She wanted to be forgotten.

Kahlan would not let that happen.

Moving carefully, she extricated herself from Richard’s grasp. Half-asleep, the Seeker made a quietly confused noise, an enquiry that was far from an accusation. Kahlan pressed a finger to his lips, silencing him and bidding him return to the slumber that had almost completely claimed him. He tried to protest, but the pull of sleep was too great even for Richard Cypher to resist, and a relieved smile touched Kahlan’s lips as his eyes rolled back and his head dropped back down to the unyielding cave floor. She pressed a tender kiss to his brow, and rose to her feet.

She knew that Cara would sense her approach, and so made no attempt to conceal it. Likewise, she knew that any words she could offer would only be met with disdain and disbelief; Cara didn’t want to be spoken to, and she didn’t want to be comforted, so Kahlan had no intention of wasting either of their time on such pointless endeavours. She would have given anything to take away Cara’s inner turmoil, but they both knew that she couldn’t do that, and she had far too much respect for the Mord-Sith to try and pretend that she could.

And so, instead, she let herself come to rest behind the motionless body, matching Cara’s stillness and silence with her own. She didn’t speak, didn’t move, didn’t even let herself think... but she was there. Close enough to feel the way Cara’s body tensed at her presence, even as she used all her strength to keep the reaction from being outwardly visible. Close enough to feel every twitch of muscle, every little jerk, every pulse of blood through her veins. Close enough to hear the wheels of her mind working themselves raw.

Close enough to reach out without disturbing even the humid air, and to wrap herself around her.

Cara exhaled. Her breath was pain.

Kahlan breathed it in. Absorbed it. Swallowed it down.

Neither of them said anything; they didn’t have to. Kahlan could feel everything, from the telltale flinch in the muscles of Cara’s stomach to the way her shoulders trembled almost imperceptibly against her own, and she didn’t utter a single word.

_You are safe with me_ , she said with her silence. _You can let yourself be weak in my arms, and I’ll pretend it never happened._

Cara heard her, and she understood. She knew exactly how much it cost someone like Kahlan to stand, stoic and silent and still, while somebody else suffered. She knew how difficult it was for the eternally compassionate Mother Confessor to witness another’s pain without so much as lifting a finger to stem the flow of it. She knew precisely how much effort was going into every breath Kahlan took, every beat of her heart, every caress of her fingers over the still-soaked red leather that was a mark of everything Cara had ever been.

Cara knew exactly how precious a gift she was being offered... and, trembling beneath the weight of emotions that even a lifetime of Mord-Sith training couldn’t suppress, she accepted it.

It was the most intimate moment of Kahlan’s life.


	4. Chapter 4

By the time the rain finally dissipated, late in the following afternoon, Cara was practically climbing the cave walls with irrepressible impatience. Kahlan supposed she could understand her restlessness, but that didn’t make the raving Mord-Sith any easier to deal with as she cursed and swore and (by midday) turned to threats of violence against anyone or anything that came within ten feet of her. Or, at the very least, those that tried to do so without bearing positive news about the weather.

On more than one occasion, Kahlan considered braving Cara’s wrath to try and calm her down, but, each time the notion surfaced, she thought better of it. The previous night’s dalliance with vulnerability had left Cara more hyper-defensive than Kahlan had ever seen her (and that was truly saying something), and she didn’t want to push any harder than she already had.

She knew the other woman well enough by now to know that she deeply regretted having allowed even Kahlan to see her in such a state of imperfection, and was (predictably, though no less frustratingly) overcompensating for it as though her life depended on sustaining her hardened image. Any attempts to break through to her, Kahlan knew, would be met with aggression, and probably violence... and that was if she was lucky.

Across the sounds of Cara’s murderous mutterings, Zedd had taken it on himself to try and keep the mood light while they waited for the elements to turn in their favour. He told jokes, regaled Richard and Kahlan with anecdotes and exotic tales of long-past glory, and offered to conjure all manner of games and entertainments to while away the hours. It was gracious of him, and Kahlan genuinely appreciated the gesture, but none of them were really in the mood to be amused, even if they could (by some miracle) have ignored Cara’s overzealous ranting.

The guilt, she could tell, was weighing heavily on the wizard shoulders; it was clear as daylight in spite of his best efforts to play the group jester, and, had it not been for her time spent with Cara (both in the forest and later that night), Kahlan would have felt deeply sorry for him. She knew he’d only done what he felt was best, and she knew that he’d never intended to hurt any of them, least of all Cara herself. She knew all of that, just as she knew that he felt terrible for the suffering he had caused, even if he didn’t really understand the extent of it. She didn’t doubt any of those things, and she wished she could go to him and put her hand on his shoulder and tell him, as she had so many times before, that it wasn’t his fault, that they all understood, even Cara (though she’d deny it)... but she couldn’t.

She couldn’t shake the image of Cara’s face, the way she trembled in her arms, the shuddering vulnerability that was not part of the Cara she knew... and she couldn’t, for all her best efforts and all her knowledge to the contrary, keep herself from thinking that it was Zedd’s fault.

 _You hurt her_ , she wanted to say, and the ferocity of the words (even as they merely echoed in the safe chamber of her own mind) was frightening. When had she come to care so deeply for Cara? At what point had she begun to look at the woman who had killed her sister as someone whose feelings meant nearly as much as her own? When had they evolved from mortal enemies to the only two people in all the world as they had stood there the previous night, locked together and oblivious to everything but each other? It was unnerving, to say the least. And she knew it was unfair to Zedd, too, but knowing it didn’t stop her feeling it, and it didn’t keep the irrational fury from striking her every time she looked at him and knew how much pain he had caused.

Finally, after more hours than any of them would have liked, the rain subsided enough to leave their path relatively clear. It would still be treacherous underfoot, Kahlan knew, but that was a state that would not evaporate for many more hours, and none of them had the least inclination to sit around and wait for another day just on the off-chance that one of them (probably Cara herself) might slip and twist their ankle on the saturated ground if they proceeded now; besides, even if they had wanted to play it safe, it was fairly obvious – without anyone needing to say a word on the subject – that Cara wouldn’t let them anyway.

And so, with substantially less cheerful enthusiasm than they’d felt even just a day earlier, they set out towards the glimmering ghost of civilisation that edged the horizon.

In hindsight, Kahlan supposed they should have seen the trouble come; it was as inevitable as the downpour had been.

They had travelled tirelessly until the black of night was so completely all-devouring that they couldn’t even see their own hands in front of their faces. Had they been in more of a hurry, they might have persevered through even the pitch black of nightfall and on to the other side, but, with the ground as wet and dangerous as it was, and this particular task being far from the world-in-peril variety that they were so used to by now (whatever Cara may have said to the contrary), it seemed unnecessary. And so, ignoring the Mord-Sith’s loud protestations, they stopped to make camp.

For the second night in a row, Cara insisted on taking first watch, and, for the second night in a row, it was obvious that ‘first watch’ was Mord-Sith code for ‘every watch until the break of dawn’. Unlike the previous night, however, it was also apparent this time that any efforts on Kahlan’s part to keep her company would be met (as they had been all day) with aggression, if not a bloody nose and a cracked jaw.

It was with a heavy heart that the Mother Confessor settled herself down beside Richard, resting her head on his chest and willing the sound of his slumbering heartbeat to lull her into sleep herself. Her gaze wandered, every now and then, towards where Cara stood watch, the telltale hum of her agiels arcing through the surprisingly warm night air, and she felt an indefinable tightness squeezing her chest with each resonating pulse of pain-laced sound.

Sleep did come for Kahlan that night, though, despite her near-overpowering anxiety. Perhaps she was more exhausted than she’d anticipated from having spent so much of the previous night awake, or perhaps the familiar rhythm of Richard’s heart truly was more of a comfort than she had anticipated. Whatever the reason (and she supposed she’d probably never know), Kahlan did indeed find herself claimed within barely a handful of minutes by an unexpected wave of much-needed slumber.

If she dreamed, she wasn’t aware of it. All she knew was that, one moment, she was wrapped in a cotton-like blanket of warmth-hazed sleep, and, seemingly in the very next one, she was being jolted awake and launching reflexively to her feet, daggers already in her hands (though she had no recollection of having drawn them) as the battle-forged sound of ringing voices and aggression-laced shouts assaulted her ears.

Had she resisted the thrall of slumber, perhaps Kahlan would have been more aware of what was actually going on before she threw herself (still half-groggy and not completely aware) into the fray; as it was, however, she could barely make out the blurred edges of distorted shadows as they locked in combat. One, she knew, was Cara’s – she could hear the defining screams of her agiels, coupled as they so often were with the bloodthirsty howls of their master – but the identities of the others (two, she deduced, or perhaps three) eluded her, and it was those shapes at whom she took aim.

Later, she would tell herself (again and again and again) that she should have known better. It would be little consolation.

Her thoughts were already racing with possibilities as she lashed out at the nearest of the shadows with the hilt of her dagger. D’Haran soldiers, Sisters of the Dark, banelings, perhaps even a renegade Mord-Sith or two... a dozen different possibilities leaped out at her, and she dismissed each of them the instant they surfaced. The world was saved; the Keeper had failed. With him, his banelings had perished, and so too had the prophecies that the Sisters of the Dark had worked so tirelessly to see fulfilled. It was possible, though Kahlan had no idea why, that the newly-resurrected Darken Rahl might have sent a D’Haran quad after them, or even a group of still-loyal Mord-Sith... but, as she swung her weapon outwards, feeling the edge of the blade draw first blood from her target, she suddenly realised that she knew better than that.

Whatever she was fighting, it was becoming ever more apparent with each passing moment that it was not a soldier.

Kahlan was only just shaking off the shade of sleep, wrenching free from the hazy delirium of grogginess that always came with being awakened so rudely by an assault; it was something she’d long ago grown used to, but no amount of practice could sharpen the dulled edges of unconsciousness until they were ready to be sharpened, and she could feel those edges only now beginning to come into their own. She should have been at a disadvantage, off-balance and off-kilter... and yet, even half-blinded by unawake dizziness as she had been, she had already landed two blows on her target without the least amount of effort (or, though she’d never admit it, skill).

Beside her, she could feel Richard pulling himself up short, sword raised but no longer moving, and she was similarly aware of Zedd (some distance behind everyone else) sucking in a deep breath. What in the name of the Creator was going on?

“Cara!” Richard shouted, and suddenly his attention was on the one shadow it shouldn’t have been on. Wasn’t Cara the one who was unequivocally on their side? What was—

“I know what I’m doing!” she yelled through the darkness and the confusion and the rising sense of chaos.

And suddenly, as though a veil had been lifted from over her field of vision, Kahlan saw what she’d been fighting, and her breath caught gurgling in her chest.

He had fallen to his knees when she’d drawn blood, and she saw him now, illuminated in the barely-existent light of the cloud-covered moon. Arms raised in a wordlessly whimpering plea for mercy, eyes wild with stark terror, face gaunt and pale as he gazed up at her as though he was seeing some kind of ethereal spirit. He was unarmed, helpless, and decidedly not a threat to anyone.

He was a petty thief.

Richard was yelling at Cara again, and Kahlan saw the flash of steel (illuminating the area for less than a heartbeat) as he sheathed his sword and used his bare hands to roughly pull the Mord-Sith away from her target.

Kahlan didn’t even need to look at the second intruder to know that she would see exactly the same thing in him, and so she raised her eyes to Cara instead, a silent enquiry on her lips. It was one she didn’t need to voice, knowing as she did that she’d see it reflected in Richard’s gaze, and in Zedd’s too. What in the world had Cara been thinking?

“They were trying to steal our supplies,” Cara snarled, struggling against Richard’s ever-tightening hold. “Our food.”

“It’s just a misunderstanding...” insisted the first of the two men (the one who still knelt in front of Kahlan, a thin line of blood staining the sleeve of his shirt where she’d caught him with her dagger), the words coming out in a stammering plea. “We were starving... we just thought...”

“No excuses!” snarled Cara, raising her agiel in readiness for another crushing blow.

“Cara,” Richard warned, and Kahlan watched his knuckles go white beneath the force he was using to keep her restrained. “Stop.”

“Richard!” she shot back, visibly disgusted as she twisted to glare at him. “There is no misunderstanding in theft. They were stealing from us. I was performing my duty in dispatching of them.”

It seemed to take every ounce of strength Richard had to keep from letting go and dropping his head into his hands in pure exasperation.

“We don’t deal with thieves by killing them,” he reminded her, with as much gentle patience as he could muster under the circumstances. “You know this by now, Cara. You know we don’t do this.”

“They deserve it,” Cara growled, sounding as though she truly meant it.

“Please...” the other man whined. “We have families!”

“Shut up!” Cara barked. “You worthless, pathetic little—”

“Cara,” Richard said again, as though repeating her name would some how cut through the bloodlust that seemed to have overtaken her senses completely. “Enough. Stop.”

“Let me kill them!” she howled.

It wasn’t a demand. It wasn’t an instruction, or a suggestion, or any of the countless other things Kahlan would have expected to hear falling from Cara’s lips at a time like this. There was no trace of a Mord-Sith in the woman who stood before them now, quivering and twitching with desperate rage even as Richard struggled to keep her in place.

She wasn’t ordering Richard to let her kill their unwanted visitors. She was _pleading_ with him.

Kahlan felt her blood run cold, and she reached out to take Cara by both arms, pulling her free from Richard’s vicelike grip and into her own arms; she didn’t expect for a moment that Cara would take kindly to the act of compassion (indeed, she began struggling almost before Kahlan’s fingers had closed around her biceps), but that didn’t matter. However resistant she was to all types of contact – and all the more so in situations like this one – she was closer to comfortable when she was in Kahlan’s company than she would ever be in Richard’s. He was the Lord Rahl; Kahlan was her companion. It was a marked difference, and one that was crucial now.

“Let me kill them,” she breathed again, eyes wide and bright as they flicked from the man at her feet to the woman now holding her. “Tell him, Kahlan. Tell him they’re criminals, attempting to steal from the Lord Rahl, and that they should be killed. Tell him...”

“Cara,” Kahlan said, hoping the sound of her voice would snap the Mord-Sith out of the abyss she’d fallen into. “Listen to me—”

“Tell him!” Cara snarled again, struggling with even more fervour. “Kahlan! Tell him that they need to die!”

“It won’t change anything,” Kahlan said softly, lowering her voice for Cara’s ears only. “It won’t change what’s happened, and it won’t help. You need to calm down, Cara. Now.”

Unsurprisingly, the only response she received was another angry growl.

Richard, ever efficient, was already dealing with the thieves. “Go home,” he told them kindly, and Kahlan noted that he made no apology for the pain they’d suffered at Cara’s hands, or the damage that Kahlan’s victim had suffered at hers before she’d realised what was truly going on; the lack of pity, he seemed to have decided, would be the punishment for their crime. “Go back to your families.”

Cara let out an enraged roar; uneasy, Kahlan tightened her grip.

Babbling their thanks, the two men scrambled to their feet and fled into the night. Richard didn’t cast them so much as a second glance; his attention was already back on Cara, and on Kahlan as well. He could tell, she knew, that she was more likely to understand Cara’s sudden overpowering violence than he was, and no doubt suspected that she would be more likely to give a rational explanation of it than the Mord-Sith in her arms was, too.

Kahlan, for her part, ignored the way he was asking questions with his eyes, and kept hers locked firmly on the Mord-Sith in her arms.

“Cara,” she said, even as Cara redoubled her efforts to free herself. “Cara, stop. _Stop_.”

“I need to kill them,” Cara insisted, and her voice was dangerously close to cracking. “I need to punish them for what they tried to do. I need to... Kahlan, I need to...”

“I know,” Kahlan replied, holding her more ever tenderly in spite of her thrashing. “You need to inflict pain. You need to be violent and ruthless and hateful and everything else that’s been beaten into you all your life. You need to embrace the only thing that makes any kind of sense to you right now.” She closed her eyes, trying not to focus on the way Cara was trembling with rage and pain. “I know. I swear, Cara, I know. I know how desperately you need to be Mord-Sith right now.”

Cara loosed another animal sound, somewhere between a howl and a wail, but Kahlan kept going relentlessly.

“But you _can’t_ ,” she pressed. “Not here... not against those men. Not against petty thieves, Cara. You’re better than that.”

“Is that what this is about?” Richard demanded, caught between anger and relief.

Finally seeming to calm down a little (though Kahlan rather suspected that was more a product of having been asked a direct question by the Lord Rahl than it was of her own ministrations), Cara took a long step backwards, effectively separating herself from Kahlan... who, in turn, was too saddened to try and follow.

“Richard. I was—”

“Don’t,” he snapped at her, and didn’t seem to notice the way she flinched. “Cara, I appreciate what you’re going through, but you can’t take it out on innocents, not even thieving ones. That’s not the way we do things. You know that. You’ve been with us for over a year, you know how we work. You know we don’t kill petty thieves.”

“I know,” she agreed; though the fire of bloodlust was still burning in her eyes, she hung her head with something that could almost have been real remorse. “I’ve let you down.”

“You have,” he affirmed, not bothering to soften the impact of his words, even as he had to know the effect it would have on her. “Kahlan’s right, Cara – you’re better than this. Whatever these ‘changes’ have taken away from you, they can’t take that. They can’t take away the person you’ve become, or the good things you’ve done, or the thousand different ways you’ve proven yourself since you joined us. Cara, whatever they’ve taken from you, they can’t take _you_.”

Cara’s breath hitched, laboured and shuddering. “I don’t know who _I_ am.”

“You’re more than your training,” Richard informed her, gentle but authoritative, and Kahlan wondered if that was really what Cara needed just then. “You’re more than the Mord-Sith that broke you or the Lord Rahl you once served. You’re Cara.”

“I’m _lost_ ,” she confessed, and Kahlan’s heart shattered at the myriad shades of pain in her voice. “I’m so lost without her, and I don’t even remember her.”

Richard opened his mouth to press the issue, but Kahlan silenced him with a look. Cara was her own worst enemy, especially when it came to the precarious subject of her own self-merit, and Kahlan knew that Richard could spend the entire night breaking down every last reason why she was worth more than she saw in herself and still barely scratch the surface of her troubles. It simply wouldn’t work, however hard he tried, and all it would achieve would be another night’s worth of soul-rending exhaustion for them all.

“You will,” she said instead, cupping Cara’s cheek and ignoring the indignant growl that wrenched from her throat at the unforgivably gentle contact. “As soon as we get to a town.”

Cara gave a defeated nod, but didn’t seem particularly cheered by the reminder. In fact, she looked all the more hungry for blood, as though she was trying once again to suppress all the hurt that she had allow to shine through just moments ago. It was as if, for every tiny step she took forward, she felt obligated to counteract with a terrified scramble backwards, and it made Kahlan ache to see her so frightened... and so desperate to deny it.

“You need to rest,” she went on, and, like a disobedient child, Cara shook her head. “I know you don’t want to, Cara, but you need to. You’re exhausted.”

Richard smiled, warmth mixed with authority. “So are you,” he pointed out, tilting his head towards her. “You should both sleep. I’ll take over watch for tonight.”

“No.”

The contradiction came not from Kahlan, or even from Cara, but from Zedd. The wizard had been ominously and uncharacteristically silent until that point, watching from a safe and forgotten distance, as he was wont to do until he was needed. As a unit, the three of them turned to face him, and an icy chill slithered down Kahlan’s spine at the self-loathing and heartache blazing like a beacon in his eyes; he looked older and frailer than she had ever seen him before, and she wouldn’t have been the least surprised at that moment if he’d keeled over and dropped dead before their eyes. It was more than simply guilt weighing on his soul now, she could tell; it was personal.

“I’ll stand watch,” he offered softly. “I need to collect my thoughts for the spell—” He hung his head, looking almost sheepish. “—and I don’t think I could sleep anyway.”

Not for the first time, Richard looked like he was about to protest, to insist on taking watch himself; ultimately, though something seemed to stop him, and he nodded instead, resting a supportive hand on his grandfather’s bony shoulder. “All right, then.”

The matter apparently decided, Kahlan turned back towards her bedroll, only to find herself stopped a moment later by Richard’s hand on her arm. She thought for a second or two that he was going to berate her for stepping in as she had to try and calm Cara down, but the light in his eyes as he held her back spoke of an entirely different qualm, and she frowned up at him with quiet puzzlement.

He waited until Cara had retired (scowling and cursing the whole way) to her bedroll, and even then made a point of dropping his voice to an almost inaudible murmur, just to make sure he wouldn’t be overheard. The precautions were pointless, Kahlan knew; if Cara wanted to hear, she would hear, no matter how softly Richard spoke.

“Stay with her,” he whispered nonetheless, tilting his head in Cara’s direction. “I don’t trust her to be by herself tonight, and you’re the only one of us she wouldn’t kill right now just for looking at her the wrong way.”

Kahlan chuckled at that, though the truth of it struck her right between the eyes; Richard was right, and the previous night’s intimacy (however fervently Cara had worked to deny it had ever happened) was evidence of the fact. It had been Kahlan that Cara had opened up to, explaining her position and begging (without ever actually begging, of course) for her support in the task of recapturing what had been lost. It had been Kahlan she had allowed to hold her all night without uttering so much as a word of complaint. Though Richard was her Lord Rahl, though they all knew Cara would obey him without question, it was obvious (and even to him, it seemed) that she would never have allowed him to embrace her the way she allowed Kahlan to, or let him see even the still-shrouded corner of her soul that Kahlan had seen.

“All right,” she said, nodding her acceptance of the task, and the relief on Richard’s face told her exactly how much it meant to him; he truly was worried, she realised, and not just because he didn’t want the blood of Cara’s ill-advised identity crisis on his hands.

That acquiescence given, and taking great care to keep those thoughts from touching her expression, she gave him a taut smile. In honesty, she was grateful for the instruction; it gave her legitimate grounds to spend the night with Cara instead of Richard. It wasn’t, she told herself, that she didn’t want to indulge in the Seeker’s company that night; it was simply difficult to appreciate all the wonderful things he had to offer, to embrace all the love and affection and desire that he bred so often within her, when her mind was tainted by thoughts of Cara. It was natural that she was worried about Cara’s mental state, she knew, but that didn’t stop those thoughts being utterly distracting.

Moving subtly, but with a sense of quiet intent that was laughably obvious, Richard shifted his bedroll some feet away from where he’d previously set it down beside her own. It was a kind gesture, and one that demonstrated all the things she loved about him; his willingness to accept when he was a liability, his submission to her superior expertise, the way he appreciated the fact that there were things in the world (often Cara-shaped things) that he simply was not equipped to deal with. It was not unlike the way he’d stepped aside the previous night and let her go after the rage-stricken Mord-Sith alone – in spite of his distaste for seeing her go out into the storm unprotected – because he’d known she was right.

It didn’t surprise Kahlan at all that Cara was less than responsive to the invasion of her personal space. She didn’t growl this time, which Kahlan couldn’t help taking as a good sign, but the tension in her body increased a hundredfold at the soft sound of Kahlan’s bedroll hitting the ground behind her own. Kahlan said nothing, waiting for the protest that she knew was imminent.

“What are you doing?” Cara grumbled, as if on cue, not bothering to turn around.

Kahlan chuckled, laying down. “Nothing,” she said.

Cara shifted with aggravation, but refused to rise to the bait. “Then do it somewhere else,” she snapped. “I want to be alone.”

“I know you do,” Kahlan said. “But I’m under strict instruction.”

Cara huffed out a frustrated, angry breath. “Richard.”

The smile on Kahlan’s lips warmed as she nodded, though she knew Cara wouldn’t be able to see it with her back to the Mother Confessor as it was. It was little things like this, she knew, that made up the reasons why Cara trusted her more than she trusted Richard, even though he was the one she served. Richard would have lied to her; he would have treated her like the child she had been before she’d been taken, instead of the woman she had become after. Richard would have told her it was for her own good, and left it at that; he cared deeply for Cara, and he respected her, but he didn’t see her for what she was. She was a fierce, devoted warrior, who had saved his life more times than any of them could count... but he didn’t see that side of her at all. All he ever saw was a little girl who had been broken by the Mord-Sith.

Kahlan didn’t. Kahlan knew what Cara was. She could see the warrior that Cara believed herself to be, and would not patronise her simply because she had once been innocent.

“Yes,” she affirmed apologetically. “He doesn’t think you ought to be alone tonight. I think he thinks you’ll sneak off to find some hapless farmers to slaughter in their beds.”

The body next to her heaved in a sigh that shook both their bedrolls, but Cara made no verbal response; Kahlan suspected, had she been feeling less melancholy, she would have proudly acknowledged the likelihood of doing precisely the thing Richard was afraid of... but Kahlan could tell, even without being able to see Cara’s face, that the Mord-Sith really was in no mood for company, not even hers.

Surrendering to her companion’s need for solitude, at least as far as she could while still following Richard’s instruction, Kahlan gave up the half-hearted feint at small talk and settled down to sleep. The ground was still wet from the storm, unpleasant even through the protective barrier of her bedroll, and, for the first time since their departure, she found herself wishing they had stayed an extra night in the warmth and relative dryness of the cave. It would have delayed them, true, but at least it would have been comparatively comfortable.

A moment’s thought of the woman beside her was enough to cast those hopes out of her thoughts, though; a night of discomfort was a small price to pay for getting to a place where Zedd would be willing to cast the spell and ease the strain on Cara’s soul. Kahlan would endure far worse than a night spent sleeping on wet ground, she decided, if there was the least chance that it would take the haunted pain from Cara’s eyes, or keep her from shaking.

Of its own accord, Kahlan felt her arm snake out, draping loosely but deliberately across Cara’s waist. Cara flinched at the touch, a full-body tremor pulsing – violent and uncontrollable – through her, but made no immediate attempts to discourage the gesture. Kahlan smiled, warmth mixed with sympathy, and let her fingers trail across the still-damp leather in small calming patterns.

“Kahlan.”

The name was rough on the Mord-Sith’s lips, and Kahlan stopped, shifting a little so she could gaze almost affectionately at the back of Cara’s head.

“I’m not pitying you, Cara,” she whispered. “I promise. I’m just—”

“I know what you’re doing.” There was a depth of strain in Cara’s voice now, as if she was physically holding herself down. “You have to stop.” She took a couple of deep breaths, and her body was taut as stone beneath Kahlan’s gently-wandering hand. “Now, Kahlan.”

The urgency in the instruction was enough to still Kahlan’s fingertips, though she didn’t raise her arm from where it rested. “Cara, last night...”

“Didn’t happen.”

Kahlan closed her eyes, and fought to compose herself. If they kept travelling this road, if she kept trying to offer herself and Cara kept drawing her in and pushing her away, again and again, there would be nothing left of either of them by the time they reached the nearest town. Cara needed something; that much had been made obvious by the almost-lethal run-in with the two unsuspecting thieves. She was teetering on a knife-edge, and Kahlan was truly afraid of what she might do if left alone with the tumult of her thoughts. Richard was more than right about that, at least; Cara couldn’t be trusted to be left alone at the moment.

But, at the same time, Kahlan had learned time and time again that there was no helping someone who didn’t want to be helped... and Cara most certainly didn’t want it. She needed it, even she knew that, but she couldn’t bring herself to accept it. She was clinging to her Mord-Sith upbringing with a kind of fierce desperation that Kahlan had never seen before, and the Mother Confessor didn’t have the least idea how to fight it.

Cara had let herself be held the previous night, with the wounds from Zedd’s confession so fresh and so open that allowing herself to fall into Kahlan’s embrace had been the only thing that could stem the flow of blood before it killed her. It had been a rare and precious moment, but it would not be repeated; every fibre of Kahlan’s being insisted that she just give up the effort and leave Cara to her self-inflicted suffering... but, for all Cara’s insistence on denying that the moment had ever happened, Kahlan didn’t have the same luxury.

Almost all night, she’d held her. Almost the entire night, and she couldn’t rend from her mind the memory of Cara’s back trembling against her front, of or the gasping breaths she fought to contain even as she knew she was safe to let them out. She couldn’t shake the flurries of emotion that had passed across Cara’s face like ghosts of shadows as they’d stood there in the forest with the rain pouring down on them both, and she couldn’t deny the way that every flicker of not-quite feeling that had touched the space behind Cara’s eyes had affected her in turn.

The only thing Cara wanted – the only thing in all the world – was to be left alone, but Kahlan could no more grant her that than she could stop herself breathing. Moreover, she was slowly coming to realise that it had nothing to do with the fact that Richard had asked her to stay by Cara’s side, or the way he had looked at her with such depthless gratitude when she’d agreed.

The need to hold Cara, to protect her from herself, to be the one she fell apart around, blazed in her so fiercely within Kahlan that she felt almost physically burned by the heat of it. Somewhere over the course of the previous night, somewhere between the Mord-Sith fury and the sporadic flashes of not-quite human vulnerability... somewhere and somehow, Cara had wormed her way into Kahlan’s heart. Somehow, she had wrapped herself around Kahlan’s very soul, irremovably, and in a way that surpassed even the slow-burning friendship that already held such a solid grasp on her. 

Somehow, somewhere, Kahlan had become addicted.

“ _Kahlan_.”

She blinked; apparently, her musings had taken her closer to sleep than she’d thought, as she found herself jolting back to full awareness and realising that, at some point, Cara had rolled over and was now facing her. Her eyes, darker than the night that surrounded them, were locked on the point where Kahlan’s hand still rested atop her covered waist, and Kahlan frowned at the intensity in them.

“Hmm?”

“You don’t understand,” Cara forced out, a breathless whimper. “You don’t understand why you... why you can’t...”

“No,” Kahlan agreed, even as she reflexively tightened her hold. “But you don’t have to explain if you don’t want to. It’s all right.”

Cara’s breath hitched. “Kahlan,” she repeated. “I need... I need to be Mord-Sith.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t.” Cara closed her eyes, and her entire body jerked and heaved with the effort of just breathing. “If you did, you wouldn’t be trying to do what you are. You would leave me alone, and forget what Richard has told you to do. You would be overcome by self-preservation, and rightly so.”

Defiantly, Kahlan resumed the tender touches of her fingertips along the cold seam where leather met laces.

Cara groaned, deep and low and dangerous. “Kahlan... you have to stop touching me.”

“You won’t hurt me, Cara,” Kahlan told her.

“You don’t have any idea what I will do,” Cara replied through tightly-clenched teeth, sounding more than deathly serious. “You don’t have any idea, Kahlan, how much effort it’s taking to keep myself from doing it now, just from _this_.”

Her breathing was ragged, though whether it was with the effort of holding herself in check or something else entirely, Kahlan didn’t know. All she knew was that Cara looked like she was in the grip of a power far greater than even she was capable of staving off; she was so close – so tangibly close – to losing completely what tenuous self-control she still possessed, and Kahlan suspected that it was only her affection for the woman beside her (an affection that she couldn’t even voice) that was keeping her from surrendering entirely to it.

“What I need,” Cara went on, sounding as though she was in a great deal of physical pain, “you cannot provide. So _stop_.”

For an endless moment, Kahlan didn’t understand. When she did, the tidal wave of embarrassment was almost powerful enough to override everything else in the world, and she yanked her arm back to her side as though Cara’s leathers had suddenly caught fire (not an entirely invalid metaphor, she mused wryly).

The look on Cara’s face was raw with a primal hunger that Kahlan was almost certain she’d never seen before; if she had, she was fairly sure she must have made a point of ignoring and promptly forgetting it. Of course, she could do neither of those now, and she felt the blood turn to ice in her veins as she gazed deep into the tormented eyes of the woman who was fighting with every ounce of faltering strength she had to keep from sacrificing herself to the beast within.

It wasn’t rage that Cara was trying to keep herself from surrendering to.

It wasn’t hate, and it wasn’t fury. It was violence, but it wasn’t aggression. It was, Kahlan realised with a sick sense of dread, her own damn fault; she’d driven Cara to this, with her gentle fingertips and her teasing touches, and the way her hands had brushed with such evasive gentleness across her side, her hips, her belly (everywhere she could reach) in a deluded feint at offering compassion. It was a fire, a deluge, a tornado... and, Kahlan could tell, it was almost more than Cara could do to control it even just enough to issue her warnings.

It wasn’t rage at all.

It was _need_.

“Cara,” she managed, nauseated. “I’m sorry. I’m so—”

“Don’t apologise,” Cara rasped, and Kahlan was suddenly too aware of the way her chest heaved with each desperately-panted breath. “But, for both of our sakes, do not allow your body to make promises it can’t keep.”

It was a fair request, Kahlan supposed, but that did little to stop the lash of it from stinging her. Cara was tense and twitching beside her, eyes alight with fire and blood and heat and urgency, and all Kahlan could do was stare at her in some helpless combination of awe and fear.

She had never been afraid of Cara before, at least not on a physical level; they both knew that a Confessor always held the power over a Mord-Sith, due to the nature of their respective abilities, and Cara had never taken that power play lightly. There had never been a reason for Kahlan to fear Cara, or the things she was capable of, though Cara had often tried to swing the balance in her favour. It had been a favourite pastime of Cara’s, early in their time together, to try and intimidate the Confessor, to try and make her fear her, even though they both knew that a single touch from the Mother Confessor would leave her dying in agony.

Cara, in turn, had never been afraid of death. Not even, though Kahlan had doubted it for a while, the decidedly torturous death Kahlan was capable of dealing her. She had insisted, time and time again, that a Mord-Sith was afraid of nothing, and she’d taken every available opportunity to prove that. She had wanted to frighten Kahlan with her fearlessness, to out-psyche her, to beat her in the only way that she knew how. She had wanted, more than anything, to regain some semblance of the authority she had once held among her sisters by proving that even the Mother Confessor, for all her power, couldn’t make weak. She had wanted to make Kahlan fear her in spite of herself.

But this time was different. Vividly, fundamentally, brutally different.

This time, Cara wasn’t trying to frighten her.

She was trying _not_ to.

Kahlan, for her part, was truly afraid.

Carefully, though she knew that Cara would pick up on it regardless, she inched her bedroll a little way back. Not a lot, and certainly not enough to keep her from doing what was necessary if Cara decided to get up and start attacking innocents again, but just enough to slow the relentless pounding of her pulse. Enough, at the very least, to keep out of touching distance, and she hated herself for succumbing to this almost as much as she hated herself for being the cause of it in the first place.

Where she lay, Cara’s breathing was shaky and erratic; in the blackened half-moonlight, Kahlan saw her clutching desperately at one of her agiels with the hand that wasn’t pillowing her head, and knew she was still fighting the war within herself, still struggling to keep from losing control of the violent impulses that were all she had left of her identity.

Kahlan ached to do something, to nurture Cara’s uncontrollable primal urges into something manageable, something recognisable as the Cara she had become and not the Mord-Sith she had been for so long... something almost human.

But, of course, she couldn’t.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated as she put her head down, even though Cara had told her not to apologise. “I’m sorry you have to feel this way. I’m sorry I can’t give you what you need.”

Cara’s fist tightened over the pain-drenched weapon. “Go to sleep, Mother Confessor.”


	5. Chapter 5

Kahlan had no idea how she managed to fall asleep that night, or how she was able to sleep as soundly as she did in light of the thoughts that had been tearing their way through her mind... but, as she woke to the indefinable aroma of whatever exotic delights Richard and Zedd had unearthed for breakfast, she certainly couldn’t deny that she was grateful for it.

The others, she realised as she clambered groggily to her feet, were already awake. Zedd seemed weary but calm as he stirred a deceptively colourless-looking broth over a fire that looked to have been burning for at least an hour; it didn’t take a wizard’s intellect to know that he’d probably been awake all night, no doubt running through his own tumultuous thoughts, and trying to figure out what he could possibly have done differently, what possible measures he could have taken to avoid the pain he had caused. Kahlan knew Zedd well enough by now to know that, even if he lived another thousand years (a resounding possibility, knowing the old wizard’s resilience as well as she did), he would probably still never forgive himself for the damage he’d inflicted. It had been the right choice, she was sure (even though she still couldn’t keep from being angry with him for what he’d done, she still believed with all her heart that he would have exhausted every other possible option before resorting to the unforgivable), but that wouldn’t stop him loathing himself for it, over and over again.

Richard, by contrast to his grandfather, looked well-rested; he was, Kahlan supposed, the one among them who was least affected by Zedd’s revelation. He was worried about Cara, of course, but couldn’t really see much beyond that. She was troubled, even he knew that much... but, then, she was often troubled. It didn’t help, either, that she was just as often violent and primitive in ways that left the rest of them wondering what in the Creator’s name could have possibly taken possession of her. It was particularly extreme this time, yes, and Kahlan had seen the way Richard’s brow had creased with genuine anxiety after the previous night’s run-in with the thieves, but ultimately, it was a depth of trauma that went beyond Richard’s meagre understanding. If asked, even he himself would admit to that.

As it was, though, Kahlan had no intention of broaching the subject again, and instead simply gave him a sleep-hazed smile.

“Morning,” he greeted with the closest approximation to his trademark grin that he was capable of under the circumstances. “You sleep well?”

Kahlan nodded, making a pointed effort to avoid Cara’s gaze, even as the Mord-Sith made no effort whatsoever to meet hers. In true Cara style, she seemed content to ignore the Confessor’s unwitting slight, and kept her attention fixed on her current task (namely that of poking at the ground with a stick); Kahlan wasn’t entirely sure why she was doing it, or what she hoped to achieve, beyond the digging of a very small hole, but she thought better than to ask. Even by her usual standards, Cara was sullen, and Kahlan didn’t want to push her again. Not after the previous night. Possibly never again.

They ate in near-silence, Kahlan and the two men consciously keeping themselves at a safe distance from Cara, who in turn seemed perfectly satisfied with her solitude; Kahlan supposed she felt it was about time they heeded her warnings and finally left her alone, and didn’t want to remark on the subject lest she draw attention to it. She wasn’t entirely sure what Cara was thinking, but the way she stabbed with real spite at whatever food happened to come her way suggested that her thoughts were no less violent than they had been the night before.

Breakfast was usually a light-hearted affair; notwithstanding the occasional necessary disturbances for banelings or other such attackers, the Seeker and his companions were often at their most rejuvenated following a half-decent night’s sleep, and, even taking into account the unfortunate incident that had descended on them the previous night, the morning’s meal should have fallen into that same category. Zedd had seemingly gone out of his way to scavenge the very best that the surrounding area had to offer by way of fruits and roots, and Richard had excelled himself in turning them into what passed for an edible meal. The food tasted good, considering what it was, and the sun was already warm on their backs as it rose in a sky that was as cloudless now as it had been rain-swollen the previous day. Everything pointed to a good day’s worth of travel, and Kahlan guessed they would probably reach the nearest town by nightfall... and yet, not one of these good omens could pierce the veil of negativity that had stealthily descended on them over the course of the night.

When they’d finished eating, Kahlan watched without a word as Cara took great enjoyment in stomping out the fire until there was nothing left but a footprint-shaped mass of dead mulch, and Richard made a point of ignoring her dramatics as he calmly went about packing their things for the journey ahead. It was, she mused sadly, the closest thing to domestic bliss they had seen that week.

Once they set a pace for their travel, the journey was far easier than it had been the previous day; the difficulties left behind by the rainstorm had all but evaporated, and the sun was high and hot to aid in dispatching of what minimal hints of saturation had remained. It was only a few short hours before Kahlan caught the telltale silhouette of almost-civilisation on the horizon, and not many more than that before the indistinct blur became dimly but certainly something resembling a town.

“We’ll be there by nightfall,” Richard said; he was ever so slightly out of breath from the exertion (Cara had, of course, refused to let them stop for anything), but seemed as relieved as Kahlan was by the realisation of how close they were getting.

“Good,” Kahlan said simply, though she knew that Richard would see everything she was feeling as it painted its way across her sweat-streaked face.

She made no efforts to hide the emotion, the concern and the worry and the raging relief at knowing it was almost over, even as she let her gaze wander from the horizon to the barely-distinct back of Cara’s head where she’d stormed on some distance ahead.

“She’s eager...” Richard observed, following her gaze.

“Wouldn’t you be, if it was you?” Kahlan replied, fighting to keep the sadness out of her voice. “She wants to put all this behind her.”

“I think we all do,” he pointed out with a tired sigh.

There was no arguing with that; Kahlan, certainly, longed for the moment when the spell was cast and they would all be able to move on with their lives. She cared about Cara, deeply, but seeing her bounce from vulnerability to violence and back again was giving her whiplash, and she wasn’t sure how much more of it she could take. Cara had genuinely frightened her the previous night, but at the same time, it had heightened everything within her that had changed, everything about her that was more than the Mord-Sith she had once been and was striving to be once more.

It hadn’t been long ago that Cara would have launched herself upon Kahlan (as she almost had the previous night) and done all the unspeakable things she’d clearly been aching for, without so much as a second thought. But, last night, she hadn’t. She’d held herself in check, even though she must have realised how clearly the strain and effort would have shown on her face. There was no way she hadn’t realised that Kahlan would see the pain within her, the force of will it was taking to restrain herself, and (most of all) the primal need to be what she believed herself to be juxtaposed with the unfathomable longing to keep from hurting the one person in all the world she could almost think of calling a friend... and yet, though she knew all of that would be clear as daylight, she had restrained herself.

She hadn’t been able to keep herself from assaulting the two helpless thieves, but she’d managed to stop herself doing the same to Kahlan. She’d fought her Mord-Sith impulses, fought the urgency and the irrepressible lust for violence and physicality, fought everything that had been burning so fiercely within her that it had practically set the world aflame. She’d done it all, and all because she hadn’t wanted to hurt Kahlan. It broke the Mother Confessor’s heart to know that Cara couldn’t see how substantial a step that was, how important it was that she hadn’t done what every fibre of her being had been screaming for.

And that was the crux of it; Kahlan could see all the goodness in the world within Cara, and so could Richard. Even Zedd, whose fault this whole mess was, could insist over and over again that Cara was a good person, a true person, and a person that had grown beyond the things that had happened to her... but it wouldn’t make the least difference to the screaming in Cara’s head. Her friends could believe in her all they wanted, completely and unshakeable, but, if Cara refused to see any of the value within herself, it was all useless. Kahlan would have given anything to make her see it, to hold her down and force her to see what they saw, the Cara that didn’t need some forgotten memory of a childhood friend turned Mord-Sith lover, but she couldn’t. Nobody could except Cara, and all Cara wanted to see was the spell cast.

“You’re worried about her.”

Richard’s voice cut through her thoughts with the efficiency of a blade, and Kahlan blinked.

“Aren’t you?” she asked, wishing she didn’t sound so accusatory.

“Of course,” he replied quickly. “But not like you. You’re...” He fumbled for words, staring out into the distance in a bid at collecting his thoughts. “It’s personal for you.”

“I care about her,” Kahlan said. “She’s a friend.”

“She’s a friend to us all,” Richard pointed out, looking almost hurt that Kahlan would exclude him and Zedd so readily. “We all care about her. We all understand why she’s doing this, why it means so much to her. I understand it, Zedd understands it. Of course she wants to get back what was taken from her. Of course she’s questioning her identity. We’d all do the same if it was us, nobody’s disputing that, even if we all worry. But you... the way you look at her...” He drew in a deep breath, shaking his head, and the small gesture told Kahlan all she needed to hear. “When she hurts, Kahlan, you hurt as well.”

“I do,” Kahlan admitted, and she had no idea where the words had come from or how Richard could have possibly known how true they were; she knew only that they were and that she could no more deny them than she could banish the air from her lungs or the soul from within her. “She’s... she’s become important to me.”

“Good,” Richard said, and Kahlan blinked. He quirked a puzzled eyebrow at her surprise. “What? You don’t think it is?”

“I thought you’d be more...” She trailed off, frowning at herself. 

What _had_ she thought he’d be? Shocked? Jealous? Both were as ridiculous as each other. Of course she cared for Cara; they were friends. However evasive Cara was of the word, of the concept, and of the feelings, it was true, and everyone knew it. And of course she would be more deeply affected by Cara’s plight than Richard or Zedd were; the two of them were kindred spirits, almost sisters in a world where friendship between them was worse than forbidden.

Mord-Sith and Confessors were mortal enemies, and that should have been the end of it. The circumstances of their fondness for each other, of Kahlan’s fondness for Cara in spite of all the things the Mord-Sith had done... it was more complicated than anything either of the men could ever comprehend, even if they tried for a hundred years. Of course it made sense that her feelings towards Cara would be more powerful, more complicated, than theirs. Why in the world would she have expected Richard to react in any way other than the one he had?

“I’m glad you care for her,” Richard told her, speaking with sincerity. “She needs someone who does. Someone who’s not me.” He exhaled tightly. “Someone who’s not the Lord Rahl. Someone she can talk to, if... if she needs to.”

“I don’t think she’d talk to me,” Kahlan sighed.

“I think she would,” he argued quietly, and she could tell he was being sincere; she wished his faith didn’t mean as much to her as it did. “If she needed to. If there was something...”

Kahlan felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, painfully aware of the unspoken implication behind his words.

“You think she’ll need me,” she realised aloud, staring at him. “When Zedd casts this spell on her. You think it’ll have... effects.”

“I didn’t say that,” Richard pointed out futilely, but she could tell that he knew better than to pretend he hadn’t meant it. “All right. I think it’ll have ‘effects’, yes. I don’t think Cara’s thought it through, and I don’t think Zedd’s thinking clearly enough to try and make her think it through. He wants to make this right, he wants to fix the damage he’s caused, and he’s not in a state of mind where he can look at it objectively. All he can see is that she’s broken and he’s the one who made it happen.”

 _Well, he is_... Kahlan wanted to say, but didn’t.

“Think about it, Kahlan,” Richard said, and his eyes were locked on Cara’s back. “How would you feel, if it was you?”

“I’m not Mord-Sith,” she reminded him, speaking very slowly and very deliberately. “And I’m not Cara, either.”

Richard rolled his eyes. “That’s not the point, Kahlan. It’s not about being a Mord-Sith. It’s not about being Cara—”

“It’s everything about being Cara!” She could feel her voice rising, knew that Cara would probably be able to hear her if she raised it much higher, but made no effort to soften it. “This isn’t about me, or what I’d do in the same position. It’s not about either of us, Richard. It’s about _her_. She _is_ a Mord-Sith, and she _is_ Cara. I can’t pretend to know what I’d do if I was going through what she is. I can’t pretend to know what how I’d feel if I was in her place, because I’m not. _She_ is, Richard. Cara. Not me. _Her_. This is all about her, Richard—”

“—and she _does_ need you.”

The assertion came not from Richard, but from Zedd; Kahlan had no way of knowing whether he’d been listening to the entire conversation (though she hoped for Richard’s sake that he hadn’t; the Seeker had been far from kind when remarking on his grandfather’s state of mind), or whether he had been the least bit affected by what he’d heard. She knew only that he’d appeared seemingly out of nowhere, and that he’d suddenly fallen neatly into step beside them as though he’d been right there the whole time. It was a mark of how long they had been travelling together, Kahlan supposed, that she couldn’t even bring herself to be the tiniest bit surprised by that.

“It’s not a simple spell,” Zedd went on, not waiting for an invitation to keep speaking, or even any acknowledgement of his sudden spontaneous appearance. “And it’s not instant. She’ll be in a trance, so to speak, and there’s no telling how long it will last. Hours, days, perhaps even a week. It depends on how much there is for her to process, and there’s no way of knowing that until she comes out at the other side.”

Kahlan bit back an aggravated retort; the more she heard about this spell, the less she liked it, and it was only by the knowledge of how desperately Cara needed its closure that she kept herself from insisting (even begging, if she thought for a moment it would help) that the Mord-Sith reconsider. She would have given anything in her power to see the spell become unnecessary, to see Cara dealing with her losses the natural way, the _human_ way... but she knew it was impossible, just as surely as she knew her own name.

“A trance,” she repeated, as evenly as she could (which, given the circumstances, wasn’t very). “You’re saying she’ll be helpless? Vulnerable? Exposed? For _days_? Please tell me you’re—”

“—deathly serious, I’m afraid,” the wizard sighed.

“Zedd,” Kahlan said. “You can’t do this to her.”

“I’m not doing anything to her,” Zedd reminded her, and Kahlan hated that she already knew that. “She’s made this choice by herself, and you know as well as I do that there’s nothing either of us can do to change her mind.” He hesitated there, looking characteristically thoughtful for a few very long moments, before finally fixing Kahlan with one of the most intense stares she’d seen from him in weeks. “If you’re willing, Kahlan, I think... I think you should be the one to keep watch over her.”

Kahlan blinked. “What?”

“She has a great deal of affection for you,” Zedd pointed out, and Kahlan found herself starting to wish people would stop pointing that out. “Whether she’d ever admit it or not, she cares for you... and, far more important than that, she trusts you. You’re the only one of us I believe she’d feel truly safe with. If the spell causes her to re-experience some of the more...” He coughed uncomfortably. “...unpleasant... aspects of her upbringing, she’ll need someone she trusts to be there with her.”

Kahlan was, understandably, feeling more than a little discomfited by this point. It felt like Zedd was placing a great deal of responsibility on her admittedly narrow shoulders, and that the focus of those responsibilities were two subjects she knew very little about – magic and Mord-Sith. It was all very well for him to assume that Cara would trust her enough to see her in such a vulnerable state as the spell would send her into, but it was another thing entirely for him to assume that Kahlan herself would be able to handle her once she got there.

“What would I need to do?” she asked, fighting to keep the rising panic out of her voice.

“Just be there,” Zedd told her. “She won’t even be aware of your presence for the majority of it, perhaps even all of it. But she’ll know before it starts that someone will need to be there with her, and she needs to be comfortable with that knowledge when the spell is cast, or her discomfort will interfere with the effects.” He took a deep breath, and Kahlan knew before he even opened his mouth again that he wasn’t finished. “Besides which, there are certain... memories... she’ll be going through that I’m sure she would take offense at the thought of Richard or myself bearing witness to.”

He coughed subtly, and if it weren’t for the stark bafflement on Richard’s face, Kahlan was sure he would have gladly left it at that.

“Intimacies,” he explained, eyeing Richard with such disbelief that it seemed almost as if he was silently demanding to know whether his grandson was truly as innocent as he was pretending to be. “Among other things. You must understand, Kahlan... Richard... once the spell begins she’ll have no choice but to remember _everything_. Every aspect of her life that was touched, in any way, by this woman’s presence. And that includes any... moments... they may have shared.”

The hot (painfully hot) blush that crept its way across Kahlan’s features was nothing compared to the searing heat that was swelling unbidden within other parts of her, and she couldn’t conceal the uncomfortable grimace that rippled through her as her gaze drew itself inexplicably towards the tightly-tied laces at Cara’s back where she continued ahead.

“I can’t do that,” she said with finality. “I can’t sit and watch her remember... that. Nobody should have to bear witness to those things, Zedd. Least of all, a Confessor.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Zedd agreed, sounding eternally apologetic. “But she can’t be left alone. She could hurt herself, or worse.”

Kahlan wanted to cry. Instead, she set her jaw with a steely resolve that she certainly didn’t feel. “You’re asking a lot from me, Zedd.”

“I’m not asking anything of you,” he replied, not for the first time; it would have been so much easier if he was simply trying to diffuse responsibility, but Kahlan saw once again the truth of it. “I didn’t ask for the spell to be cast. That request was Cara’s, and she’s the one who needs this from you. Not me. I’m simply telling you what needs to happen, what precautions must be taken, if we’re to make sure it has as few risks as possible.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, but didn’t stop walking, and Kahlan found herself placing a reassuring hand on his arm. She wasn’t sure where the gesture came from, as she was still far from pleased with him, and yet she couldn’t quite stop herself trying to offer him the comfort he seemed to need so desperately.

“I’ve caused too many spells to go wrong lately,” he went on, a prayerful confession. “I won’t let this one do likewise. I won’t let my magic hurt her again. I swear it.”

A thousand thoughts swirled through Kahlan’s mind, but she bit her tongue to keep from giving voice to them. They weren’t Zedd’s burden to bear, nor were they Richard’s to hear. They were hers to work through, and hers alone; it was neither man’s job to tell her whether she could do this or not, whether her empathy for Cara’s suffering would outweigh the pain she herself would feel at being an unwitting witness, and it was neither of their job to make her feel better for whichever decision she made. 

Still, her soul ached at the thought of what she would have to do, if she agreed to it. She would watch, from a distance that transcended worlds, as Cara re-lived the most private moments a person could experience, and with someone who didn’t exist. She would live, vicariously and unintentionally, through a woman who wouldn’t even be aware of her presence, and watch helplessly as she dragged herself back from those memories when they’d run their course, with the knowledge that they had never happened. It was almost more than her heart could bear just to think of.

“Does she know abut this?” she asked, ignoring the wave of surging emotion.

The way Zedd averted his eyes at the question told her all she needed to know. She sighed, aggravated and offended in equal measure, as he studied the ground, and fought to keep from erupting.

“And when, exactly, were you planning on telling her?”

“Kahlan...” Zedd began roughly, and she knew.

“You want _me_ to tell her,” she exploded, unable to keep the horror out of her voice; even Richard, who had been quiet until this point, seemed a little stunned by the idea.

“Like I said,” Zedd replied, very quietly, “she cares about you, and she trusts you. You’re the only one of us she truly trusts, Kahlan.”

“She trusts Richard,” Kahlan said, clinging desperately to the sliver of hope, even as the absurdity of it struck her clean across the jaw.

“She _respects_ me,” Richard corrected, and she had never been closer to hating him than she was at that moment, even though she knew it to be true. “It’s not the same. She’s loyal to me, because she’s been raised her entire life to be loyal to the Lord Rahl. She cares for me, because I have faith in her and I’m honest... but it’s not the same as what she feels for you. I’ll always be her superior, but what she needs is an equal.”

“What she needs...” Kahlan couldn’t quite keep herself from choking on the words. “...is for none of this to have happened.”

Not waiting for a response (knowing too well that it wouldn’t come, and not caring anyway), she stormed on ahead, suddenly understanding far more intimately than she would have liked just how difficult it was for Cara to reign in her aggressive impulses. Kahlan wasn’t normally one to get violent at little things, and she prided herself on being able to see stories from all possible angles (as a Confessor, fair-mindedness was just as much a part of her duty as the eking out of justice), but, the longer this went on, the harder she was finding it to be considerate to Zedd’s ever-increasing rolodex of requests; he’d gotten himself into this mess, dragging Cara along with him, and somehow it seemed to fall to Kahlan (again and again and again) to pick up the pieces of his folly. It didn’t seem fair, not to Cara and certainly not to Kahlan herself, and she couldn’t quite conceal the bubbling tide of resentment that was rising ever more furiously within her.

Settling into a steady pace a short distance behind Cara, she watched as the Mord-Sith continued to tear ahead like a woman possessed, taking random pot-shots with her heel or fists at whatever flora or fauna happened to get in her way. There was something indefinably calming about the rhythmic violence, relaxing enough that even Kahlan felt its effect, and the infuriation slowly began to bleed out of her as she watched. 

It shouldn’t have mattered, she realised, how or why she had been called upon to be the axis of Zedd’s penance; what should have mattered (the only thing that should have mattered), was that she was being called on to help Cara. It should have been enough that she was able to do something; hadn’t she spent the best part of two nights praying to the Creator and beyond for the ability to help Cara in any way possible? Hadn’t she longed to be able to hold Cara through her troubles, to comfort her and be there for her? And what was this, if not the perfect opportunity to do just that? She should be embracing it, she mused, not balking at it.

“Cara.”

The body in front of her jerked, twitched, but didn’t turn around. “Haven’t we already established my desire to be left alone, Mother Confessor?”

Kahlan picked up her pace, swiftly closing the distance between them. “I know,” she said, and it wasn’t quite an apology. “But this is about the spell.”

Despite her obvious efforts, Cara’s demeanour softened ever so slightly; clearly, the spell and its potential effects had been weighing as heavily on her mind as it had been on Zedd’s.

“Let me guess,” she deadpanned, though Kahlan could see right through her oft-used façade of practiced indifference. “The wizard is getting cold feet, and has commissioned you to tell me that he can’t go through with it, because he knows I will not raise a hand against you. Am I close?”

“No,” Kahlan answered quickly. “But there are considerations. Things he thinks you need to stop and think about before you—”

“I understand the nature of the spell,” Cara snapped, swiping maliciously at a rose bush as though it had been the one to suggest such an offensive thing. Petals flew everywhere, emphasising her point, and Cara sneezed. “I will remember my life – the other Cara’s life – as it was when Dahlia was taken as well. I will re-live all the experiences they shared, all the parts of that Cara’s life that were touched by this woman. I know precisely how it works, Kahlan.”

“Zedd wants me to stay with you,” Kahlan explained, ignoring her tirade. “He says you could be under the spell’s influence for days, and thinks you might hurt yourself if left alone.” Cara grunted, but said nothing, so Kahlan continued. “He’s got it into his head that I’m the best person to keep watch over you while you’re under the spell’s effects... while you...”

“...while I’m _vulnerable_ ,” Cara finished maliciously, spitting the word out as if it were a deadly poison. “He wants you to be my nursemaid while I’m unable to take care of myself.”

Kahlan winced, hating the way it sounded on Cara’s tongue. “Something like that.”

“Very well,” Cara agreed, and Kahlan was so shocked by the acquiescence that she lost her footing and toppled over.

Much to her chagrined relief, Cara said nothing, merely stopped and stood (arms folded and expression tight with comical impatience) and tapped her foot while Kahlan dragged herself back to her feet. 

“Just like that?” she asked, when she’d managed to pick up the tattered remains of her dignity.

“Of course,” Cara replied, already setting off again without so much as waiting for Kahlan to finish rearranging her skirts. “If that’s what the wizard believes is best, who am I to argue with him?” Her shoulders tensed briefly. “He clearly knows better than I do what’s best for me.”

“Cara...”

The Mord-Sith waved an irritated hand, as though Kahlan and her protests were little more than buzzing flies around her head.

“Yes, I will allow you to be there,” she said, as though that was the end of it all. “Stop behaving as though this is some remarkable and world-altering shock, Kahlan.”

“But it is,” Kahlan insisted.

This time, it was Cara who stopped, turning to face the Mother Confessor with angry eyes and both hands on her hips. “Why?”

“After last night, I thought you might not...”

Cara huffed out a breath, eyes rolling up towards the sky in irrepressible disgust.

“I will be under the spell’s influence,” she reminded Kahlan. “In a ‘trance’, as I’m sure the wizard so eloquently phrased it.” Kahlan forced down a chuckle at that; it amused her far more than it should have that Zedd’s penchant for purple prose was so well-known that ever in her current state Cara could predict it. “You will not be in any danger from me.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” Kahlan said, not for the first time. “I was just worried that you might want... that you might be a little uncomfortable to have me there while you’re... while you...”

“While I’m living another woman’s life?”

Kahlan shrugged, and Cara took that as a cue to resume walking, though she was moving a little bit slower now; if Kahlan didn’t know better, she would almost have thought that the Mord-Sith was actually warming to her presence.

“The memories aren’t mine,” Cara went on, eyes locked on the horizon, even as her posture relaxed. “It’s not my life you will be intruding on, Kahlan.”

“No,” Kahlan admitted with a sigh, “but you’ll be the one living through it.”

Cara shrugged. “If you’re uncomfortable with this, I can’t help you,” she said, speaking softly but moodily. “All I can say is that I am not. You have seen me, Kahlan. You know me, better than Richard and the wizard, and everybody else combined. You are... Kahlan... you are...” She broke off, shuddering violently.

“Cara?”

“Kahlan.”

Suddenly, she sounded every bit as tortured as she had the previous night, though there was no hint of the violent urges or agonising self-control she’d been forced to employ then. This looked more like she was waging an ill-conceived war with herself, as if one part of her wanted to say one thing and the other half wanted to say exactly the opposite.

“Do not make me say it,” she forced out through tightly-gritted teeth. “You must know. Do not make me say it if you know.”

“I don’t know,” Kahlan said, honestly confused. “I promise you, Cara, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Cara groaned, the sound raw and deep and strangled, and Kahlan almost wanted to take her words back. She didn’t, though, and instead waited (despite the discomfort of the moment) for Cara to compose herself and explain. She had been hurting for two days, hurting in ways that Kahlan couldn’t even begin to comprehend; though she wanted to feel bad for stretching that suffering out, Kahlan rather doubted that a confession (however troubled) could possibly cause Cara any more pain than she was already feeling. And so she waited in resolved silence while Cara gathered her strength.

At last, she seemed to find the courage to voice her thoughts, and when she did, it was in a tremulous whimper, so uncharacteristic of the self-assured Mord-Sith that Kahlan was rendered entirely speechless even before her mind caught up and realised what the words actually were.

“You are the reason why I am doing this.”

As the words landed, mere moments after she’d absorbed the tortured tone of Cara’s voice, Kahlan’s breath caught in her throat.

Cara wouldn’t meet her gaze, instead doubling her pace in an unconscious bid at putting some distance between the two of them.

“Don’t,” she said, a fearful whisper. “Kahlan, _don’t_.”

Every fibre of Kahlan’s being screamed at her to say something, to do something, to _think_ something... but Cara was relentless, and had already tripled the pace of her stride before the last syllable had even left her lips.

This time, the distance between them was not negotiable. Cara would be left alone, at least until they reached the town, or she would slaughter without a second thought whoever dared invade her personal space again. It was not a question, and her mind would not be changed... and so, hating herself for it, Kahlan surrendered.

Letting herself fall behind, though not so far as to be caught up by Richard and Zedd, the Mother Confessor had never felt so alone.

They didn’t stop for lunch, and Kahlan found herself grateful for the fact; dimly, she could hear Zedd lamenting the lack of sustenance, but she was happy to accept the empty belly if it meant a quicker arrival at their destination... or, indeed, if it merely bypassed the need to spend more time than was necessary in the others’ company. Besides, it was obvious to all of them that Cara would have kept going, even if Richard had put his foot down and insisted on stopping, and so it seemed the least troublesome option to ignore their growing hunger and continue onwards to the ever-nearing town. They could fill their stomachs with a properly-cooked meal when they reached a nice warm tavern, Zedd had reasoned hopefully, and left it at that.

By the time the sun began to sink in the sky, its deepening shades of orange bathing the horizon in dusky light, they were close enough to see the smoke rising from the buildings, and within an hour of that, found themselves standing on the doorstep of a slightly weather-beaten inn.

It was no surprise to any of them that Cara wasted no time before storming into the establishment, but Kahlan was more than a little thrown by the way the Mord-Sith’s usually rock-steady hands were shaking at her sides as she kicked open the crooked door and sauntered inside with all the self-assured cockiness they’d come to expect of her.

Zedd and Richard, of course, didn’t seem to notice the brief tremor in Cara’s demeanour, rolling their eyes in perfect unison at the aura of careless self-importance that she seemed to put just a little more effort than usual into exuding, but Kahlan certainly saw it. She told herself it was obvious, that the men must’ve had rocks in their heads not to have seen the momentary lapse themselves, but she knew the truth of the matter, though she would never speak it aloud – already, she was so tightly attuned to Cara’s every action that she would have noticed if a single eyelash had been put out of place. And, though it pained her to admit it, that bothered her.

“A room,” Cara demanded of the unsuspecting barkeep, as the other three followed her with apologetic reticence into the half-empty tavern.

“Two,” Zedd corrected swiftly, and ignored the glare that Cara shot him.

Muttering less-than-pleasant things about them both, Richard took a couple of long steps forward, putting himself between the Mord-Sith, the wizard, and the barkeep (and Kahlan couldn’t help thinking that the three of them combined sounded far too much like the beginning of a bad joke). 

“Or,” Richard said pointedly, ignoring the strained humour of the situation, “as we in the civilised world like to say, ‘hello’.”

The barkeep, who had been looking from Cara to Zedd and back again with a sense of uneasy consternation, as though he had never seen a Mord-Sith or an old man in all his life, turned to Richard with his mouth half-open in unvoiced platitude; Kahlan had no idea what, if anything, he had intended to say, because the words died unspoken on his lips as his eyes caught the distinctive gleam of the Sword of Truth where it rested peacefully in its scabbard.

Suddenly, predictably, his entire countenance changed.

“You’re the Seeker!” he observed, wholly unnecessarily, eyes narrowing.

“Yes,” Richard replied, nodding with cautious unease. “But we don’t want any trouble, I promise you. We just want a couple of rooms... and, if your kitchen’s in working order, a hot meal.”

The barkeep broke into a broad grin.

“For the Seeker, anything!” he cried, jubilant, and Kahlan felt her own features relax into a tired half-smile. It had been so long since they’d encountered anyone who didn’t want to have one or another of their heads mounted, she’d almost forgotten what friendship in the eyes of a stranger looked like.

True to his word, the barkeep dropped everything in a zealous effort to accommodate his newest patrons.

Richard scarcely had time to insist that the man go to no trouble on their account before he was being ushered into a chair and told to make himself as comfortable as he wanted. Kahlan, for her part, found herself suddenly encumbered with keys to what the burly man insisted were the two finest rooms his admittedly meagre establishment had to offer, and what small protests she’d intended to give were silenced as a nearby patron insisted (far more loudly, she couldn’t help thinking, than was strictly necessary) on buying a round of drinks for the Seeker and all three of his friends.

“Not you,” Zedd murmured to Cara as the Mord-Sith gave the alcohol an inappropriately lusty stare. “If I’m going to cast this spell on you tonight, as I’m sure you’ll insist, I don’t want your inhibitions any lower than they already are.”

Cara growled; the sound rumbled in her throat, ominous but edged with something shockingly close to bemusement. Had she not seen it with her own eyes, Kahlan would never have believed it was there. 

“You won’t rest until you have destroyed _everything_ I hold dear,” she growled, “will you?”

“No,” Zedd affirmed with the closest to a genuine smile he’d shed in days, “I won’t.”


	6. Chapter 6

In spite of Cara’s emphatic arguments, Richard put his foot down and told her (then, when she made a point of ignoring him, gave in and flat-out ordered her) to wait until the next morning before seeing the spell cast. 

They could all use a good night’s sleep, he’d pointed out, in a real bed without fear of attack (whether it be by beast, bad weather, or anything else). Cara had looked very much as if she would have struck him dead where he stood if he’d been anyone other than the Lord Rahl... though she became suddenly quite content to rein in those impulses as soon as Zedd grudgingly granted her permission to partake of the free-flowing alcohol.

“A _small_ amount,” he’d pressed with significance, and she’d glared at him until he finally just gave up and let her do what she wanted.

Kahlan rather suspected that Zedd’s own inhibitions had been lowered by the promise of a good meal, but she didn’t say anything.

Predictably stubborn, Cara tried to refuse the fare, stating that she wasn’t hungry, but Richard confiscated her ale until she’d eaten at least a little, and so she acquiesced to chew miserably on the leg of some unfortunate animal until such a point as he handed the container back to her. Kahlan watched her with a smile, silently embracing the way she seemed to have relaxed (not that she would ever admit it) almost from the moment she’d stepped into the tavern; it was as if, with the end of her torment in sight, Cara was less afraid of herself. Or, at the very least, better at hiding it.

It was later than any of them had expected when they retired to their rooms, and they were all too full of food and drink (and the off-key songs the patrons had serenaded them with) to much care about the hour. 

Though she had drunk far more than the other three combined, Cara needed no assistance in climbing the rickety wooden staircase, or in navigating the too-narrow hallway to the room she was to share with Kahlan, and, for her part, Kahlan had far too great an affection for her own appendages to dare try and offer help if it hadn’t been asked for. Instead, she focused her attention on Richard, holding his hand as they ascended the staircase and bidding him a genuinely affectionate goodnight as they parted ways.

“Good luck,” he murmured against her lips, kissing her with a depth of love and warmth that she knew would linger long after they parted.

When they broke, Kahlan watched as the Seeker’s eyes darted to Cara (who, by that point, was leaning less-than-casually against the nearest wall), and chuckled.

“You too,” she told him, allowing her own gaze to flick across the corridor, to where Zedd was idly mumbling something about rabbits.

Richard laughed, the sound washing over her like a cool stream, and gave her one last long embrace. He was gone a moment later, and Kahlan allowed herself the luxury of gazing at the spot he’d vanished from, before directing her attention to Cara.

“Are you all right?”

“Mm,” Cara replied, and her inarticulacy was enough to convince Kahlan that the drink’s effects were finally beginning to take hold.

“Had we known that a few pitchers of ale would cure you of your problems,” she observed, “we would’ve been saved a great deal of hassle.”

Cara closed her eyes, body going stiff, and Kahlan wished she could take the words back. 

“I will not apologise,” Cara said, the words coming seemingly out of nowhere and punctuated with a sigh so heavy that Kahlan could almost believe it bore the whole world on it. “Not for this. Not now. I will _not_ apologise, Kahlan.”

“I never asked you to.”

“You would drink, too,” she went on, apparently oblivious to Kahlan’s assurances, “if you were in my place. You would drink until you were driven unconscious by it. I will not apologise for seeking some small moment of solace in a—”

“Cara,” Kahlan interrupted, placing a hand on her shoulder to stem the tidal wave of words. “I wasn’t judging you. I just meant...” 

She trailed off, realising that she wasn’t being heeded. Breathing shallow, Cara had leaned in to press her forehead against the cool wooden door, and seemed to be focused exclusively on keeping herself upright. 

“Can we not speak?” she asked in a tiny voice. “I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to...”

“All right,” Kahlan agreed readily.

She let her hand to slide down from Cara’s shoulder, slow and casual, until it rested supportively at the small of her back; letting it linger there while she unlocked the door, she shifted position (albeit very carefully) as soon as the task was done. Keeping that arm tightly locked around the wavering Mord-Sith’s waist in a bid at keeping her from falling over, she pushed the door open and eased them both inside.

“We don’t have to talk,” she reiterated, speaking softly. “You should get some sleep.”

Endearingly compliant, Cara let herself be guided to the bed that stood in the middle of the modest room; if this was truly among the finest the inn had to offer, Kahlan was suddenly very glad of the fact that her earlier attempts at protesting the innkeeper’s unnecessary generosity had been unsuccessful. It looked very much like she would find herself sleeping on the floor, and, though a threadbare carpet was a far cry from rain-soaked mud and earth, it was hardly the luxury she’d been anticipating for her first real night of rest after defeating the Keeper. Not that she could blame the barkeep for the modesty of his accommodations, really, but she still couldn’t quite conceal the disappointment that flushed through her.

Blessedly, Cara was in no condition to heed her reaction to their quarters, and her brief moment of un-Confessor-like materialism would remain forever unknown to the rest of the world.

“Kahlan,” Cara was mumbling, sounding dizzy; her bobbing head seemed to be held upright by pure force of will and very little else, and, had the sight not been so adorable, Kahlan would have found it hilarious. “You must take the bed instead.”

“You need it more,” Kahlan insisted, emphatic, and she meant it.

Cara tried to shift her feet, wobbling unsteadily in the process; gently, Kahlan sat her down on the bed, lest she fall down; Zedd, she was sure, would be most unimpressed if Kahlan let her charge injure herself before the spell was even cast.

“I am a Mord-Sith,” she said (as if Kahlan needed reminding of that particular fact after the previous night). “I do not like soft things.”

Kahlan exhaled. Were they really going to get into an argument about this? _Now_? If she were to compile a list of the most entertaining ways to spend an evening (and her first evening of almost-comfort in as long as she could remember, too), she was fairly certain that arguing with a half-drunk Mord-Sith about bedroom etiquette would certainly not have featured on it. In fact, quite the opposite, and she was already forming a counter to the foolishness when Cara spoke again.

“I said I do not want to talk,” she reminded Kahlan, looking as serious as she could with the ale still flowing through her veins. “That means about this, too. You take the bed, Kahlan. I want the floor. It is more than adequate for my purposes, and you...”

She trailed off, biting down hard on her lower lip.

Quirking an eyebrow at the unuttered thought, Kahlan nonetheless allowed herself the defeat of accepting the offered bed; whatever the Mord-Sith’s true reason for being chivalrous, all that calling her bluff would do was ensure that neither of them got any sleep at all that night. Besides, she mused, watching as Cara toppled off the bed and landed on the floor in an untidy but effective crouch, she had promised that they wouldn’t need to talk, and a disagreement (however mundane the subject matter happened to be) definitely qualified as ‘talking’.

The bed, she discovered, was surprisingly comfortable for what it was. Perhaps it was just that she hadn’t slept in one for so long that the concept had become alien to her, or perhaps the bed was genuinely more luxuriant than the rest of the surroundings suggested. Whichever it was, Kahlan didn’t care; within a matter of moments, she found herself sighing in pure and unrestrained contentment, leaning back against the welcomingly-fluffed pillows, relishing the softness and the warmth and wondering why in the Creator’s name she’d been willing to surrender such luxury to an unappreciative Mord-Sith in the first place.

At the edge of her awareness, she heard the rustling of fabric, and knew that Cara was trying (and, from the sound of it, failing) to shed her leathers; with a quickness that rather belied the gravity of the situation, Kahlan stripped one of the bed’s many blankets, and tossed it at her companion. Cara, for her part, gave a disgruntled whine as the blanket draped itself unceremoniously over her head, and resumed her fumbling attempts to undress.

“Need a hand?” Kahlan asked, trying to ignore the way her speech slurred ever so slightly with relaxed drowsiness. “You seem to be... struggling. A little bit.”

Cara muttered something that sounded not unlike ‘ _shut up_ ’. Kahlan wisely chose to keep her helpfulness to herself from then on, and rolled over in bed. Pushing the consciousness-edging sound of Cara’s clumsy flailing to the back of her mind, she let her eyes drift completely closed and revelled in the beatific embrace of softness and real comfort, and so many other things that she’d been deprived for so long she’d almost forgotten what they felt like.

As if aware of just how close to sleep she was, Cara’s voice intruded on the haze of half-slumber that was descending upon her, in almost the very instant before she surrendered completely.

“...Kahlan?”

She sounded troubled, almost pained, and Kahlan immediately jolted back to full awareness. “What’s wrong, Cara? Are you all right?”

Apparently, the effortful endeavours to remove her leathers had been at least mostly successful because, as Kahlan shifted to meet her gaze, Cara was most decidedly naked (albeit thankfully covered up to her collarbone by the carefully-rearranged blanket); she shifted uncomfortably, looking decidedly unhappy, wringing her hands in her lap.

“I...” She stopped, took a deep breath, held it in, breathed out slowly.

“Cara,” Kahlan said, tenderness covering over the very real anxiety that was pooling in the pit of her stomach. “What is it? What’s the matter?”

Still wringing her hands, Cara took another shuddering breath. 

“I wanted you to know...” She gulped down air, almost choking on it. “...and you may blame the drink if you wish...”

“Cara!” Kahlan hadn’t intended the outburst to come out quite so sharply as it had, but she was genuinely frightened now. “Spirits, Cara, what _is_ it?”

Annoyed at the interruption, Cara glared, then swallowed hard.

“I wanted you to know....” she repeated, the words tumbling from her lips in a shamed mumble. “...that I hope...” She closed her eyes, then forced out, all in a single rushed breath, “I hope you’re comfortable, and that you sleep well.”

Kahlan choked. “Is that all?”

She realised, half a second too late, that it had been exactly the worst possible thing she could have said to someone as carefully-guarded as Cara when she’d finally acquiesced to saying something _nice_... but her worry had been brought to such a fever pitch (only to be finally shattered by such soul-bending relief that she was still catching her breath), she simply hadn’t been able to stop the outburst.

Cara rolled her eyes, trying to conceal the obvious hurt. “I shouldn’t have bothered.”

“No,” Kahlan amended as quickly and as sincerely as she could. “I’m glad you did. I am, really. I shouldn’t have... I’m sorry, I was just worried.”

“Well, don’t be,” Cara retorted, sounding sullen, and promptly rolled over onto her side, facing the wall. “Mother Confessor.”

It was obvious from the stiffness of her posture, even concealed as it was beneath the generous expanse of blanket, that she was through with her attempts at humanity for the night (and probably for the next few years, at least), and Kahlan once again cursed herself for the reflexive outcry. She had drunk less than a quarter of what Cara had, and that was a generous assumption; certainly, she didn’t have the excuse of lowered inhibitions for her ill-chosen reaction. Only her own inherent foolishness.

Not that it mattered, she mused wryly. Cara wouldn’t forgive her for the slight, however unintentional it had been; they both knew how rare such a moment was, how precious and how beautiful an expression of genuine sentiment was when it fell from the lips of the woman who couldn’t even confess to having any feelings at all. She had been offering Kahlan a gift, she knew, and the Mother Confessor had (without even thinking) thrown it to the ground and trampled on it as if it were a common weed.

After that, it took far longer than it should have for Kahlan to finally let herself be claimed by sleep.

She knew that Cara was still awake, and no doubt would be until morning; she wasn’t entirely sure whether it was unease about what would happen the following morning, the effects of the ale, or her lingering bitterness at Kahlan’s harsh dismissal of her not-quite feelings, or some combination of them all, but she knew as surely as she felt herself surrendering that Cara would not allow herself the same luxury. Kahlan didn’t know how much sleep the Mord-Sith had managed to get over the last few days, but she suspected it was very little, and had rather hoped that the effects of the alcohol would have driven her (even unwillingly) into slumber, but the occasional sounds of restless shifting and grumbling from the body on the floor told her that it wasn’t going to happen.

Kahlan, for her part, was simultaneously wrapped up in self-loathing for her faux pas in not accepting Cara’s rare offering for the blessing it was, and consumed by worry about the woman who tossed and turned on the floor beside her. No matter how hard she tried to clear her mind and her thoughts, she could think of nothing but Cara.

By the time she finally surrendered to the pull of unconsciousness, it was almost dawn, and she knew (even as she drifted off into a dreamless sleep) that she would be woken far sooner than her tired body would have liked – if not by Cara, then by Richard and Zedd’s arrival. Even if the wizard would’ve wanted to sleep in late, a particular favourite pastime of his, Kahlan knew that the Seeker wouldn’t allow it. Richard was one of the earliest risers Kahlan had ever known, second only to Cara, and he was as restless as he was easily woken; he would no more be content to stare at the walls of the room he shared with Zedd than Cara would be willing to postpone the spell for yet another day.

When she awoke, some hours later, it was to the wave of blazing sunshine that streamed into the little room through its lone window. Though she hadn’t slept particularly well (despite the luxury of the bed), she felt far more well-rested than she’d expected, and a lazy smile was just beginning to trail a slow path across her features as she sat up, eyes darting reflexively to the floor in search of Cara.

To her surprise and chagrin, Cara was not only awake, but fully dressed, standing at the window and staring out at what Kahlan imagined was probably a very limited view of the town beyond. And, she realised with a depth of suddenly searing embarrassment, she wasn’t alone.

Richard stood beside her, shoulders tight and back straight as he followed the Mord-Sith’s distant gaze, and Zedd sat quietly in the middle of the floor, not far from where Cara’s blanket lay hastily discarded, munching thoughtfully on a persimmon.

“You’re awake,” he observed with a full mouth.

Kahlan stifled a groggy yawn, leaping out of the bed so fast she almost lost her balance. “You should’ve woken me.”

“You looked so peaceful,” Richard pointed out with a small grin as he turned from the window. “We didn’t want to disturb you.”

He glanced briefly at the Mord-Sith by his side. In return, Cara shrugged carelessly and tilted her head in silent acquiescence of something that Kahlan couldn’t quite figure out... at least, until Richard went on.

“Cara thought you needed rest,” he said, and that explained everything. “She threatened to hurt us if we tried to wake you, so we let you sleep in.”

Again, Cara shrugged. “You would have just complained,” she said simply, but refused to meet Kahlan’s eye. “I didn’t want you pouting like a small child, that’s all.”

There was something hollow, almost vacant, in her expression; it was barely detectable at all, but to the Mother Confessor’s well-trained eye, it was inescapable, and she felt her chest constrict just a little to see it.

It was obvious that Cara was still upset about Kahlan’s unintentional faux pas the previous night, in spite of her genuine and heartfelt remorse, and it tugged Kahlan’s heart in a dozen different directions at once to see her so deliberately distant. As she’d suspected last night, it would take far more than a few hastily-whimpered apologies to set things right, and it didn’t look like she’d have the luxury of trying for a long time now.

“Well... thank you,” she said instead.

She made a point of injecting as much meaning into the simple statement as she could, because she wasn’t allowed to voice any of those other thoughts aloud; she may not have been able to go back in time and stop herself from belittling Cara’s attempts at sentiment, and she couldn’t really try to make up for it now, in the company of Richard and Zedd... but she could do something, however small, to make herself feel as though she’d made the effort.

Looking irritable (albeit not too much more so than usual), Cara turned to glare at Zedd; the wizard, in turn, was being just a little too deliberate in keeping his attention fixed on the fruit in his hand, and trying just a little bit too hard to be oblivious to the world around him. It didn’t fool Kahlan (or, it seemed, even Richard, by far the most gullible of them all), and certainly didn’t seem to fool Cara; the Mord-Sith crossed the room in a single long step, and came to stand before the seated wizard with both hands on her hips and a scowl on her face that would have frozen the flames of the Underworld in a heartbeat.

“Enough dalliance, wizard,” she said. “Now.”

Zedd swallowed his mouthful of persimmon. “There’s no need for such impatience, Cara,” he told her, and the calmness in his voice wasn’t convincing anyone. “I’ll cast the spell, just as I promised I would.”

“ _Now_ ,” she repeated, impatient.

Sighing dramatically, Zedd eased himself to his feet. “Youth,” he lamented, shaking his head. “No patience, and no respect. Is it such an inconvenience to let a wizard finish his breakfast before making him perform complicated rituals?”

“You’ve had three days’ worth of breakfasts,” Cara reminded him. “You will not cast me aside again.”

Zedd seemed to know better than to argue, and so, with one last longing look at the small pile of persimmons he’d brought with him, he flicked back his sleeves and focused his attention on the Mord-Sith.

It never failed to astonish Kahlan how easily he went from the silly old man that none of them really took seriously to the well-renowned and much-respected wizard of the First Order that was awed and feared across all the Midlands and beyond. The two personas were so wildly different, so utterly polarised, it was staggeringly easy to forget when travelling with one that the other was also there, ever-present and irremovable.

“Sit down,” he commanded, all traces of the food-enamoured (and somewhat petulant) Zedd long gone now.

Cara shifted to drop back onto her makeshift nest on the floor, but he stopped her with a hand, letting her know with his eyes that he was the one giving orders now.

“On the bed, my dear,” he told her. “I want you comfortable.”

“The floor is more than satisfactory,” she snapped.

“Not for this,” he replied, and his tone held more authority than Kahlan had ever heard him use on the easily-annoyed Cara. “Do you want me to cast it, or not?”

Glaring daggers at anyone who would hold her eye long enough, Cara stalked over to the bed and sat down, looking all the while as if she wanted nothing more than for the mattress to burst into flames beneath her. Zedd waited patiently, letting his expression issue instructions on his mouth’s behalf, until she’d settled quietly (but still furiously) back against the pillows, arms folded across her chest and posture rigid.

Ignoring the malicious mutterings of his charge, Zedd turned to face Kahlan, studying her with an almost fatherly concern. 

“Are you sure you’re up to this?” he asked softly, and Kahlan had to work very hard to ignore the flicker of fear that rippled through her veins at the sheer weight of gravity in the question, and in his voice as he asked it.

“I’m sure,” she replied, eyes locked on Cara.

“Whatever happens,” Zedd went on, relentless, “don’t try to wake her. Once the spell is cast, it’s imperative that it’s seen through. If you try to pull her out before she’s ready to be pulled out, you’ll end up causing a great deal more harm than good.”

Kahlan’s stomach gave a precarious lurch. “All right,” she agreed, wishing she didn’t sound as reluctant as she felt. “I’ll leave her alone. I won’t touch her, I won’t talk to her, I won’t do anything. I’ll just... stand in the corner and watch.”

Zedd smiled, or came as close to it as he was able to just then.

“You can talk to her,” he said, and the softness of his voice belied a far deeper message than simply the granting of permission.

Kahlan opened her mouth to question it, but he didn’t let her get the words out.

“If she seems distressed...” he said, eyes everywhere but on the woman in front of him, “you won’t do any harm by trying to soothe her. She won’t be aware of your presence, or your words, but it may comfort you to feel like you’re doing something to comfort her, so don’t be afraid to talk to her if you want to... or if you feel like either one of you needs it. Just don’t try and wake her. That’s all.”

“I don’t like this, Zedd,” Kahlan said, and the truth of it cut all the more deeply for having to admit it aloud.

It seemed that there were far too many opportunities for things to go wrong, and that all the weight of making sure they didn’t was resting firmly on her shoulders. She was, of course, long accustomed to responsibility, but this was different. This was someone she cared about, indeed someone she cared for almost as deeply as she cared for Richard. The thought that she might somehow end up causing some kind of permanent damage to Cara (directly or otherwise), if she didn’t adhere to an increasingly strict set of guidelines, was terrifying on a level she hadn’t even known she possessed.

“Neither do I,” the wizard admitted, and, though it certainly didn’t fill her with confidence, Kahlan was glad of his honesty.

On the bed, Cara twitched, impatient and unhappy. “Make up your mind, Kahlan,” she snapped, and Kahlan flinched. “Either you’re willing to do this, or you aren’t. But do not toy with me now.”

Kahlan sighed. If she refused, she was fairly certain Cara would never speak to her again, and, though the concept had some appeal to it, she knew that she’d be longing for the Mord-Sith’s cutting remarks in no time at all. And besides, though she knew Cara would never say it aloud (much less allow anyone to hear it), she _did_ trust Kahlan. Richard had said it, and so had Zedd, and Cara had all but said it herself... and yet, somehow, instead of strengthening Kahlan’s resolve to do what was desired of her, instead of making her more determined than ever not to let Cara down again, instead of doing any of the countless things it should have done, that knowledge only made her even more uneasy than she already was.

Cara didn’t trust. Kahlan was fairly sure that, if they were honest with themselves, they’d both admit that she didn’t even know what the word meant. Trust, like affection and compassion and love and every other softer emotion in the world, was something that had been beaten out of Cara many years ago, something that it would take many more years to rebuild within her. It wasn’t something she just gave away, or even something she’d know if it hit her, and it plucked at the strings of Kahlan’s heart to think that, even unacknowledged and unspoken as it was, the sentiment was there, locked up tight but undeniably existent, and only for Kahlan.

It was more than responsibility, nurturing those fragile slivers of emotion in an empty heart. It was so much more, and Kahlan was truly terrified of not giving it the justice it deserved.

“All right,” she said at last, speaking to Zedd and trying not to think too hard. “Do it.”

With a tense nod, the wizard crossed over to the bed. His gaze locked with Cara’s in spite of the Mord-Sith’s best efforts to stare at the cracks in the wall, and Kahlan watched as he tried to implore her with his eyes to take him seriously; they all knew that, the instant he started explaining things, Cara would chime in with her usual insistences that she didn’t care about his ‘technicalities’, that she just wanted to remember. And she would get that haunted look in her eyes, too, the one that would melt Kahlan’s soul and render her incapable of recalling exactly why Zedd’s points were so important in the first place, even as every part of her knew that they were. 

Thankfully, though every line on her face seemed desperate to launch into a tirade of protests and insistences just like the ones Kahlan imagined, Cara seemed to accept the weight of what was about to happen (though it was with obvious reluctance), and made no attempt to silence the wizard as he began.

“When you’re touched by someone,” he said, drawing a vial and several similar-looking pouches from various hidden orifices in his robes, “the moment of contact leaves a mark. Whether it’s for a second or an hour, a phantom of their existence – an imprint, if you will – remains.”

He began mixing the contents of the pouches together, pouring them into the vial one by one with characteristic carefulness, and shaking it lightly when he was done.

“This spell is going to harness the imprint of Dahlia left in me from the time I spent with her... with you both... and channel it into something you can use.”

He switched the vial to his other hand, shaking it a bit harder until Kahlan could see the myriad colours swirling and mingling together through the translucent glass. Were it not so frightening, it would almost have been beautiful.

“Using it,” he finished, “you’ll remember every part of your life, as it was touched by hers.”

“I know all this, wizard,” Cara said, though everyone in the room knew it was a lie; Cara understood very little of the basic functions of magic, and Kahlan could tell she was just trying to get Zedd to stop talking and move on to the spellcasting.

“Perhaps,” replied Zedd, keeping his tone even. “But I don’t believe you realise the enormity of it. You’ll remember everything, Cara. Every aspect, every last moment of your life in that world, every facet that was touched by Dahlia’s presence, however indirectly. You’ll remember it all, whether she was there with you or not. You will remember _everything_.”

“Good.”

“You’ll remember it,” Zedd went on, ignoring her, “as though it were happening to you. That includes your being broken.”

“I know,” Cara snapped, and her patience sounded as if it too was at risk of being broken.

“ _Both_ times,” Zedd explained, positively exasperated. “I don’t know what Rahl did to you the second time, what he could possibly have done to destroy you as completely as he did. I only know that the magic he used was among the darkest I’ve ever encountered. I don’t know what sort of pain he might have inflicted on you, or what kind of suffering he might have put you through. I can’t prepare you for it, Cara.”

Kahlan’s pulse was racing, her heart in her throat. “But it won’t affect her?” she asked, far more tremulously than she would’ve liked. “The magic he used? She won’t be re-broken again when she comes around? When the spell’s finished? She won’t be...”

“No,” Zedd confirmed. “She’ll remember it, as though she were living it – every breath, every touch, every part of it – but it won’t have happened. She’ll feel it all... but it’s just a phantom, an imprint of a life that she never lived. Whatever magic Rahl cast, it’s not real, and it holds no power here. The magic itself doesn’t exist, no matter how completely she believes herself to feel its effects.” He closed his eyes and lowered his voice, and Kahlan couldn’t quite tell whether he was still addressing her or Cara. “But the feelings, the sensations, the _experience_... they will be real. And there will be confusion when it’s over. And pain.”

“I’m a Mord-Sith,” Cara said. “I know pain.”

Zedd’s eyes told Kahlan all she needed to know (‘ _not like this_ ’), but he chose not to say it aloud; briefly, she thought about insisting that he tell her, that he break through the thickness of Cara’s skull and the rock-like solidity of her stubbornness until she had no choice but to heed his warnings and take them seriously... but she knew, just as Zedd seemed to, that they would have to pound at her mental walls for a very long time before Cara would submit.

She had made her mind up, and all Zedd could do was warn her to the best of his ability. Which was about as limited, it seemed, as his knowledge, and Kahlan sighed with tired frustration as he turned his focus instead to the vial, waving his free hand over its open top and murmuring a few complicated-sounding words in a language she didn’t understand.

The eagerness on Cara’s face as Zedd finished was almost dazzling, but the wizard ignored her completely; instead, he turned to Kahlan, and held out the vial for her to take. She didn’t, at least not immediately, merely tilted her head and frowned at him, wordlessly asking why he was handing it to her and not directly to Cara; she knew better than to ask the question aloud, though a single glance in Cara’s direction told her that their mutual charge was not nearly so polite.

“She needs to drink it,” Zedd told Kahlan, pre-empting the question that was about to fall from Cara’s lips and at the same time overriding the need to address her directly. “All of it.” His eyes darted to Richard then, and he inclined his head in a wordless instruction. “After we’re gone.”

Kahlan considered arguing, pointing out that Cara wasn’t under the spell yet and that Zedd really shouldn’t be talking around her and over her and across her and every possible way except _at_ her, but she didn’t. She was pretty sure that, were she in the same position as the wizard, she would have been avoiding Cara’s piercing stares as well.

It must have been more than difficult for him, knowing what he was about to put her through, and knowing it was his own fault that she’d demanded (indeed, almost begged) to be put through it in the first place. Cara knew precisely what she would endure; she knew it with probably more clarity than Zedd himself did, and yet she’d insisted on it anyway because the pain of going through it was less than the pain of knowing (without fully understanding) what had been taken from her. And it was his fault.

No, Kahlan mused with a sad sigh. She definitely couldn’t blame him for avoiding Cara now. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t.

And so she took the vial without a word, thoughtfully studying its depths while she waited for the two men to depart. The wizard, unsurprisingly, was quick to leave, pausing only to shoot Kahlan a significant glance; it was the kind that said he had faith in her to keep Cara safe, to retroactively protect her from the damage he’d dealt, and to hold her through the pain he was about to cause for a second time. It was a look that lasted less than a moment, but it was enough, and Kahlan felt her chest constrict anew with resurfacing nervousness. 

Richard, for his part, shot her a long and loving smile, feathered a tender kiss across her cheek (one that lingered perhaps a moment or two longer than it should have done), and followed the wizard out of the room.

Left alone with the fidgeting Mord-Sith, Kahlan crossed tentatively to the bed, sitting on the edge and eyeing Cara with as much worry as she felt she could get away with before suffering an agiel to the chest; it wasn’t much, and it certainly wasn’t enough, but it was all she dared at that point, knowing that she needed to be conscious at the very least if she was to see this through.

Cara, obviously irritated by the gesture (but not enough to actually do anything about it), quirked an eyebrow and held out a hand for the vial; Kahlan, harnessing all her self-control, pulled it back out of her reach.

“Are you sure?” she asked, one last time, just to set the revenant pounding of her heart at ease. “I mean... are you _really_ sure?”

“You’re trying my patience,” Cara growled.

“I don’t care,” Kahlan told her candidly. “I’d sooner try your patience a thousand times, and be _sure_ , than just stand back and let you do this if there’s the slightest chance either of us aren’t.”

Cara uncrossed her arms, leaning in until Kahlan could feel the warmth of her breath against her cheek.

“I’m sure. I have never been more sure of anything in my life. I know what awaits me on the other side, and I know that you, of all people, will not allow it to destroy me. I give myself up to your care, Kahlan, not because I must, but because I choose to. Because I...”

_Say it_ , Kahlan willed her silently. _Please_.

“Dammit!” Cara burst out instead, and Kahlan started despite herself. “ _This_ , Kahlan! This is why I need to do this.”

Kahlan knew exactly what she meant, but she refused to let it show; it was readily apparent that this would be the last chance she had to talk with Cara (at least, _her_ Cara). Though Zedd had said she would be safe from whatever changes had been forced upon the other world’s Cara, Kahlan knew from personal experience that the wizard’s certainty about such things was questionable at best; at worst, it didn’t even bear thinking about, and Kahlan had no intention of letting her Cara dive into the abyss until they’d said all that they needed to.

“Because you can’t say it?” she asked softly.

“No!” Cara choked, as though the word was an insect lodged in her throat. “Because... because, Kahlan, you deserve to hear it said.”

Kahlan couldn’t stop herself then. She knew it was a dalliance with death, that Cara knew a thousand and one ways to kill her and was undoubtedly in exactly the mood to put any one of those ways into practice, but she just couldn’t stop herself. She leaned in, letting her forehead come to rest heavily against Cara’s own, taking a moment to relish the coolness of the other woman’s skin... and, finally, pulled her into a tight embrace.

She didn’t want to agree with this. She didn’t want to watch as Cara put herself through some of the worst experiences anyone could imagine (no small number of which she’d already lived through once), in the vain hope of gleaning some grain of wisdom from the presence of another woman. She didn’t want to condone Cara’s masochistic desire to see affection only through a haze of torture and blood and pain, as was the only way a Mord-Sith knew... but, at the same time, she couldn’t deny the sentiment, the savage honesty of the situation as it cascaded through her like an endless and inescapable tidal wave, and she could not deny Cara her moment any longer.

“You deserve to be able to say it,” she heard herself whisper, feeling the tickle of Cara’s hair as her words moved it, and those words were her acquiescence.

She would let this happen, and she would be not just accepting but willing.

Slowly, carefully, she pulled back, holding Cara’s ocean-coloured gaze with an intensity that she knew would startle them both. She wanted that moment to last forever, the soul-deep connection without words between two people who should have been mortal enemies; she wanted to breathe every part of herself into Cara, willed her to know that she not only understood but gave her consent to this. Not simply because it was expected of her, or because she’d been asked to play a pivotal part, but because she believed in it... because she had seen what Cara needed to find within it.

“I’ll be right here,” she breathed meaningfully. “I won’t go anywhere, not once. However long it takes, I’ll be here.”

Cara nodded, swallowing hard. “Good.”

If Kahlan didn’t know any better, she would have sworn there was something like fear in the Mord-Sith’s eyes as their gazes locked. It was absurd, of course, but that didn’t stop her heart from pulsing with the near-irrepressible urge to pull the other woman back into her arms and hold her until every ounce of whatever it was disappeared like rain evaporating under the glare of the midday sun.

“All right then,” she said instead, confidence and anxiety tangling around each other to make her feel like she would pass out if she left it a second longer. 

Not willing to take the chance of losing consciousness before anything even happened, she distracted herself by holding out the vial, hoping that Cara wouldn’t notice (or else that she would graciously ignore) the way her fingertips trembled where they gripped it.

“Here,” she said, a bit breathless. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“I’m ready,” Cara insisted, taking the vial without so much as a second thought.

She looked at it for a few long moments, watching the swirling colours arc and loop through the glass, then smiled a tight little smile (the kind that Kahlan recognised as false bravery, the kind that made her all the more desperate to wrap her up in a hug)...

...and then, finally, without even taking so much as a moment to brace herself for what lay ahead, she put the small container to her lips and, in a single swallow, tipped its still-glowing contents down her throat.


	7. Chapter 7

_At seven years old, Cara had hated being alone._

_She was a bright child, energetic and enthusiastic, always with a story to tell or an adventure to share. Solitude deprived her of friends and family, people to share in her excitement over small things, people to hear the stories she’d weave from the air, people to smile or wave at her or to share her adventures. Solitude was boredom, and it was loneliness... and, at seven years old, she had hated it._

_At nine years old, just two years later and after just a single day as captive to the Mord-Sith, she no longer merely hated it._

_She was terrified of it._

_When she was alone, the rats came for her. Out of nowhere, and yet seemingly from everywhere all at once, they came and they tried to devour her. Always, and only when she was alone._

_She’d spent the entire day being beaten, again and again and again until the room had started pitching and spinning and she was sure she would pass out (sure she would, though she never did). She was in pain, she was frightened; she wanted someone to hold her and to kiss away her wounds like her mother always did when she scraped her knees, but she’d quickly learned that the only grown-ups in this new and nightmarish world were the kind of grown-ups who wanted to hurt her._

_When she’d cried, the pain proving too much for her almost instantly, the blows had come harder and faster. She’d thought it was the worst thing in the world, and had begged to be left alone. Prayed for solitude, even though it went against everything in her._

_But then her prayers were answered, and she swiftly discovered that there were far worse things to be endured in this place than a few blows, however painful._

_Cara wasn’t a brave child. She wasn’t a coward, but she was easily startled, and even more easily upset. Perhaps that was why she’d been chosen in the first place; she wouldd never know. All she knew was that she was in pain, reeling from the beatings that she had endured for what felt like a hundred lifetimes already, and frightened. More than frightened, even before the rats appeared._

_It was intentional, though she wouldn’t know that until some years later; she had been conditioned, deliberately and purposefully, so that her fear reached a fever pitch at exactly the moment the rats started appearing. And they did, swarming at her as though she was the first good meal they’d seen in all their lives, diving upon her as though they’d never seen such a tasty morsel before, biting and clawing as though she would escape somehow if they didn’t tear her apart quickly enough._

_Cara, alone and trembling and weak and scared, couldn’t suppress the terrified cries that ripped from within her just as the rats ripped at her from without._

_Paralysed as she was by the fear and the pain and everything else that had so utterly overpowered her in the brief time she’d been in this horrible place, she offered little resistance as they began to gnaw at her. Fingers, toes, any part of her they could reach, tearing and biting... and still, though she wanted to shake them off, she just lay there, trembling and crying and wishing that the door would open (even as she knew that she had been wishing just as fervently mere minutes earlier for it to close and leave her alone). Praying, just as she’d prayed for solitude, for the strange red-clad women who had beaten her to within an inch of her life, to return now and save her from this._

_It didn’t happen. The minutes bled into hours, on and on until she was sure that weeks had passed, and still nobody came. It wasn’t until the break of dawn, hours or months or years later, that she realised the errors of her childish fear. The door opened and, without so much as a ‘good morning’ from her shadowed captors, the now-familiar scream of their agiels slammed and pulsed through every last inch of her as the beatings began anew, more ruthless even than the previous day._

_The still-bleeding bite marks left by the rats were soon forgotten, and, this time, she did pass out._

*

The spell’s effects had been instantaneous. Almost the very moment Cara had swallowed the vial’s contents, she’d fallen back against the pillows, looking almost as if she’d been knocked unconscious; if it hadn’t been for the way her eyes had snapped open, their entire surface area turned milk-white, Kahlan would have thought that the spell had backfired somehow, that something had gone wrong and Cara had been driven into some kind of magical coma. As it was, judging by the way Cara was staring at the ceiling, eyes completely white but also somehow aware (unconscious but awake), it became immediately apparent that this was, for what little it was worth, what was supposed to be happening. The knowledge didn’t really ease Kahlan’s discomfort, but she’d seen enough spells in her lifetime to realise, however grudgingly, when one was working as it should, and so she’d clenched her teeth and done nothing.

It had been only a matter of moments before the delirious mumbling had started, and scarcely a minute or two after that Kahlan found her heart crying out in plaintive empathy as Cara jerked upright and began to cry out in fear and pain. The words had been indistinct, uncertain, but laced with such torment that they had threatened to rend Kahlan’s heart from her chest, and she’d been forced to clench her fists with white-knuckle intensity to keep from ignoring Zedd’s instructions and dragging Cara back to wakefulness, where it was safe and she wasn’t suffering.

“Cara,” she’d murmured as quietly as she could. “It’s all right. You’re safe. I’m right here. It’s all right.”

Zedd had told her she could talk to the unresponsive Mord-Sith if she wanted, so long as she didn’t try to interrupt the spell’s path; her words, if she was honest, were borne far more of the need to give herself something to do than they were of the hope of easing Cara’s turmoil.

Unsurprisingly, her reassurances had been completely ignored; what fleeting disappointment had gripped Kahlan was swiftly dismissed in deference to the panic that surged up as the whimpers gurgling in Cara’s throat slowly escalated into keening wails. She would have given anything in the world to offer some ghost of comfort over the galactic distance that now hung between them, but she was too afraid to do anything more than murmur helplessly in the vain hope that some tiny corner of Cara’s consciousness could hear her.

It had seemed like hours before the pained noises finally ceased, and Kahlan allowed the tiniest sigh of relief to escape her as Cara fell into silence and collapsed back onto the pillows, eyes rolling up into the back of her head. She knew better than to expect that it was the last she’d see of Cara’s pain, but, even after just a handful of minutes, she was already exhausted; she wasn’t sure she wanted to know how Cara herself was feeling, but she strongly suspected that the Mord-Sith needed the brief reprieve just as desperately as she did.

She didn’t try to disturb Cara, or even to talk to her again, afraid of what her efforts might bring if she pushed too hard; instead, she settled for simply watching the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest, and listening intently to the way her breathing would hitch every now and then in response to something Kahlan could not see, and didn’t want to.

There was something intoxicating about the way she lay there, so exposed and so frighteningly small; it was something that Kahlan hadn’t expected, and she felt herself losing track of time as she watched it. Zedd had been serious when he’d said that Cara would be vulnerable; even like this, looking as though she was fast asleep, as though there was no spell on her at all, Cara looked so much like a child that it stole Kahlan’s breath. Her eyes were still wide open in spite of her sleeplike stillness, and their spell-blind whiteness obliterated far more than Kahlan had expected of Cara’s characteristic frigidity. She looked human, _mortal_ , and Kahlan couldn’t keep from leaning in to brush a loose strand of hair away from her face.

Almost the instant her fingertips brushed the unblemished skin of Cara’s brow, she found herself flinching reflexively back; Cara was blazing with feverish heat, and Kahlan felt an irrepressible surge of powerless anxiety crash over her like a collapsing building. She had no idea whether it was part of the spell or not – whether it was something normal, something to be expected, or whether it was a sign of something having already gone wrong. She didn’t know _anything_ , she realised, and the sudden flood of irrepressible helplessness tore at her from inside, leaving her gasping for air.

“It’s all right,” she said, not for the first time (and, she was sure, not for the last).

Moving rather more uneasily this time, she extended a hand towards the Mord-Sith’s damp brow. Cautious, she placed the back of her hand against Cara’s forehead, letting the heat soak into her own skin, silently willing it to leave Cara and bleed into her instead. She could handle a little feverishness, she decided, but she had no idea (and no way of finding out, either) if Cara could.

Unconsciously (at least, Kahlan assumed it was unconsciously), Cara shifted. The movement was slight, barely even a movement at all, but it had the effect of turning her head just a little towards Kahlan’s hand, a soft sigh escaping her as she almost (almost) seemed to lean into the cooling contact. It was practically nothing, perhaps even less than that, but Kahlan was strengthened by it even so.

Cara was still in there, she told herself; somewhere beyond the depths of whatever she was going through, somewhere in the dregs of whatever life she was living out in her mind... _somewhere_ , the Cara that had surrendered herself to Kahlan’s care could feel her there, and was drawing comfort from it.

Perhaps it wasn’t true; Zedd certainly seemed to think it wasn’t likewly, and Kahlan knew by now to (mostly) believe the wizard when he spoke of spellcasting. But, even if the reaction was no more than a figment of Kahlan’s overactive imagination, it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was the fact that Kahlan could allow herself a moment to believe that it was true, and a moment longer to believe that, whatever Cara was going through, somehow – across worlds and minds and lives – Kahlan, with her tender touches, was helping.

*

_Someone was touching her._

_It was the first (and, for a long time, only) thing that Cara was aware of as the hazy fog of consciousness returned (against her best efforts to keep it subdued), and she felt the softest of unbidden whimpers escape her as she fought to focus._

_“Crying is weakness, Cara.”_

_Making a tiny enquiring noise from somewhere at the back of her throat, somewhere she hadn’t even known existed, Cara tried to sit up. Every inch of her was pounding with pain, pain like she’d never known before, and she wanted nothing more than to succumb to the warm embrace of unconsciousness again. She wanted to pass out, to sleep forever. She wanted to be oblivious to the reeling agony, to the chaotic tumult of her thoughts, to the hard floor and the hard hands holding on to her and the serrated edges of darkness that pricked behind her eyes._

_She wanted to be oblivious to everything, oblivious to all the world. She wanted to be dead._

_Above her, the blurry shape of her captor (Miss Cranston, she reminded herself, her schoolteacher... but, then, hadn’t she called herself ‘Mistress Nathair’?) seemed to be waiting, expecting some kind of response from her hapless victim but Cara didn’t have enough left inside her to offer one. All she could do was loose another groan, thick and churning with pain and vertigo, and know before the soft sound even escaped her that it wasn’t good enough._

_As surely as if she’d made the rules herself, she found her futile efforts rewarded with a sickening blow from the agiel, and the capacity to form even the smallest of whimpers was ripped out of her by its deafening scream._

_“You need to learn to be strong,” the voice informed her._

_“I can’t...” Cara managed, and those two words took almost everything she had._ Almost. __

_Another blow, and dazzling lights exploded behind her eyes. “You can. And you will.”_

_The pain dwindled, if only for a moment, and Cara felt the cool touch of a gloved hand against her stinging cheek; it was, she supposed, meant to be comforting, but all it did was make her shiver and ache for her mother’s arms._

_“If you can be strong for me, Cara...” The words were soft, almost like the kind schoolteacher Miss Cranston had once been. “...I will make sure you are rewarded.”_

_“I want my mother...” Cara heard herself whisper; it was less than a breath, scarcely more than a thought, but it was all she could manage, and it was the only thing in all the world that she wanted._

_“Oh, Cara.” The words were a snapped-off laugh. “Your mother doesn’t want you. Why do you think you’re here?”_

_A strangled sob was desperately trying to break free from a place deep within her, but she willed it back. She didn’t want to be struck by the agiel again, and hadn’t the woman already told her that crying was weakness? Hadn’t she already been punished for crying, even in the private solitude of her cell, with only the rats as witness to her tears? Cara did not care about being weak or strong, but she didn’t want to be hit again, and feared for her life if she was forced to take another round of blows. And so, with a depth of courage she hadn’t known she possessed, she refused to let herself cry._

_“I promise you, Cara,” she was told. “If you can learn to be strong, I will make sure that you don’t have to be alone in this place.”_

_Cara couldn’t quite contain her excitement at that; it was the first glimmer of positivity or promise she’d experienced since her capture, and, as small as it was, it meant a great deal to her child’s mind, and to her faltering heart as well._

_The dangling carrot of potential reward was an exceptionally powerful tool, and a thousand times more so when dealing with a child as young and impressionable as Cara. Cara, who was too young to understand the cleverness in breaking someone, too young to entertain the thought that she might be being manipulated, too young to think that there might be more to such a generous promise than the kindness in those honey-coated words._

_And so, not knowing any better, she took the promise for what she believed it to be – an incentive to do as she was told, a reason to behave, a hope to cling to while the rats clawed and bit at her fingers and toes. Miss Cranston was, after all, her teacher; hadn’t she offered Cara rewards in the classroom, many times, for doing her schoolwork correctly?_

_“I’d like that,” she forced out. “I’d like that very much, Miss Cr—”_

_“Mistress,” her teacher corrected, pulling back her agiel-wielding hand with a sad sigh._

_Cara’s head snapped back at the disciplining blow, and it took a long time before her ears stopped ringing. She would have welcomed unconsciousness, the pain was so great, but unconscious was not so kind as to welcome her in return._

_As soon as the world righted itself, she let out an apologetic whimper. “Mistress.”_

_Even in the barely-existent light of the cell, she could see her teacher smiling, pride-touched benevolence, and the sight of it lit her up._

*

“Mistress.”

The word (title, really) had come seemingly out of nowhere, and Kahlan started in surprise at the sorry supplication in it. Cara hadn’t moved, and there was nothing in her posture or demeanour to suggest anything had changed at all, but the word had most definitely left her lips. Gently, not wanting to disturb her, Kahlan drew her hand back from where it had been resting atop Cara’s brow, and let it slide downwards to take the Mord-Sith loosely by the hand.

To her surprise, and delight, she felt the telltale twitch of Cara’s fingers, even through the rough fabric of her leather gloves; it felt almost as if she was trying to grip Kahlan’s hand in return, though Kahlan knew better than to believe she really was. She didn’t shift, nor did she really react at all, but her fingers continued to flex and flinch with something that made Kahlan’s heart a little lighter to pretend was awareness. She didn’t try and say anything, not knowing what she could possibly say, but she was strengthened by what she felt, and she let that be enough.

Silence fell over the two of them almost immediately, and Kahlan was simultaneously disappointed that Cara’s brief outburst wasn’t followed by another, and relieved that whatever memories she was experiencing weren’t powerful enough to make her cry out again. She simply sat there, stiff and silent, staring straight ahead as though the cracks in the far wall would somehow yield all the secrets to her other life, as if she could fall into them if she stared hard enough.

It was unnerving, watching Cara lying so still and motionless, and the sight reminded Kahlan of just how active her companion usually was, even when she wasn’t making a conscious effort to be; she’d never really thought about it before, but Cara was always restless, always doing something. From the impatient tapping of her foot when their quest was interrupted, to the careless tilting of her head when she refused (never failed, always refused) to understand some subtle nuance of human emotion despite Kahlan’s best efforts to foist them upon her, to the way her eyes would dart about as if in constant anticipation of attack.

She never stopped moving. Never. Even when she was asleep (though it was a rare thing indeed for Cara to let any of her companions see her in the grip of slumber), she was always tossing and turning, murmuring indistinctly at whatever spectral phantoms haunted her dreams; at first, Kahlan had found herself wondering if she was having nightmares, if being outcast by her sisters had caused some kind of trauma that her subconscious mind was striving to work through (and, in those early days of mutual hatred, Kahlan had honestly hoped that it was the case)... but, as the days turned to weeks and Cara’s body remained as restless as ever despite her ever-increasing distance from the life that had once been all she knew, she’d come to realise that that was just Cara. Just another corner of who she was. Forever moving.

Now, though, she was utterly motionless. And that was frightening.

Minutes passed, during which time Kahlan just held Cara’s hand, running her thumb over her leather-clad palm in what she hoped was a soothing rhythm, and listening to the occasional hitch of the Mord-Sith’s breathing. She could still feel the unnatural heat through the glove, and was fairly sure it was growing even warmer as time passed, but she didn’t do anything about it; if her skin grew hotter still, she would try and cool her down with a damp cloth, but for the time being, she just wanted to let the spell work itself through uninterrupted, lest she cause more harm by trying to help.

“I don’t...” Cara mumbled eventually, head rocking back. “I don’t...” She swallowed hard, soft sounds that weren’t quite moans rippling in her throat. “I... Mistress...”

“Shh,” Kahlan urged gently, and Cara’s entire body flinched.

The Mord-Sith’s mumblings died in her throat a moment later, reverberating hollowly with a wet gurgling sound. Again, her body jolted, and Kahlan forgot the touch of her hand in favour of wrapping Cara up in an embrace that it pained her to know Cara could not protest.

Random, inarticulate words of comfort spilled from her lips, and even she herself couldn’t decipher exactly what they were, only that she longed for the sentiments behind the empty words to cross the barrier between them and touch Cara’s soul, her heart, her body, any part of her.

Again, Cara jerked, but this time Kahlan held fast, holding her in place. Another violent twitch, and the choking noises began to die in her throat until there was once more nothing but silence between them. It was a stillness in sound only, as Cara continued to jolt and twitch and flinch against unseen impact in spite of Kahlan’s arms around her, and the Mother Confessor redoubled her wordless prayers to the Creator that some fragment of solace might reach her.

She was being beaten again, Kahlan realised, and the thought sent a wave of nausea through her, not least of all for how long it had taken her to figure it out. Wherever she was, she was being beaten, and badly... and Kahlan could tell by the way she bit her lip and kept her jaw clenched tight that she was trying her hardest not to cry out.

This was the Cara she knew, the Cara who refused to let herself be forced into submission, though it broke Kahlan’s heart to see that suffering so close and yet from so great a distance. She tightened her grip, leaning in to press her lips to Cara’s temple in a gesture that, had they been two other people (anyone but Confessor and Mord-Sith) might almost have been a kiss.

“I’m here,” she whispered urgently. “I’m here, Cara. I’m here. I’m—”

“—strong.”

*

_“Please...” Cara heard herself force out, through a jaw that she was fairly sure had been broken in at least one place. “I’m strong... I’m strong...” She closed her eyes, feeling the room spin. “Mistress...”_

 _It had been hours, perhaps more, and she hadn’t cried out, not even once. Mistress Nathair (_ her _mistress) had insisted that she prove herself, that she prove she was strong and that she was deserving of the reward she’d been promised. She had demanded that Cara take everything she had to give, and so Cara had. Resolved by thoughts and visions and memories of the rats, by the knowledge that they would be waiting for her the instant she was left alone in her cell, by the hurt and fear that she knew they were capable of inflicting with just the smallest of nibbles, she had bitten her lip until blood gushed freely from it and mingled with the rivers of clotted pain left behind by the agiel._

_She hadn’t cried. In spite of everything that had been done to her, again and again and again, she hadn’t cried. She was strong._

_“Good girl,” her mistress said. “I’m very proud of you.”_

_“Please,” Cara managed again, ignoring the way her skull pounded at the effort just to move. “Please... you promised...”_

_“I did,” was the curt reply, clipped and precise, but with a carefully-hidden note of acceptance. “And I shall honour that promise, Cara, just as I said I would. You have done well, you have proven your strength, and you have made me proud.” Cara whined her acknowledgement of the compliment, but didn’t have the energy to say more. “And, yes, you have earned your reward.”_

_Distantly, as if the sound was coming from much further away than it was, Cara heard the resounding clang of a door being thrown open, followed immediately by the whimpering sobs of another girl. It was a sound too familiar – too excruciatingly, painfully, terrifyingly familiar – and it was all that Cara could do to keep herself from crying out just at the sound of it._

_The pain that surged up within her at that helpless noise was utterly heart-stopping, and completely soul-destroying; it was the kind of pain that was second only in intensity to the screaming of her battered body, and she wanted to fight against the unfairness of it all._

_Of all the things she had expected, it hadn’t been this. Even as some corner of her mind insisted she should have anticipated something like this, the rest of it was so overpowered by the suffocating combination of physical and emotional pain that she couldn’t do anything but hate this new world for what it had done._

_She’d thought, when Mistress Nathair had promised that she wouldn’t be alone, that she herself would have stayed with Cara that night. She had assumed that her mistress would have kept vigil in the cold and lonely cell to frighten the rats away, that her teacher would have taken it upon herself to keep Cara safe. She’d thought she would be granted a protector, a mother or a father or a sister who would look after her and hold her and protect her from the biting and the clawing and the scratching of the beasts that so assaulted her._

_She hadn’t thought for a moment that her solitude would be ended by another girl. Another child. Another innocent, taken against her will. Another, just like her._

_“No...” she heard herself wail, close to tears._

_“You wanted a companion,” her mistress reminded her, not at all gently but not exactly with any malice either; it was a rough juxtaposition, and one that turned Cara’s stomach. “I am providing you with one. I am giving you nothing more or less than what you asked for, Cara.” She inclined her head, almost imperceptibly, in the general direction of the sobbing newcomer. “She doesn’t wish to be left alone either. You’ll be each other’s comfort from now on.”_

_Cara couldn’t see the other girl, couldn’t see anything at all with her eyes swollen near-shut and her vision blurred as they were from the beating, but she didn’t care. She didn’t want to see. She couldn’t bear to see anyone else hurt like this._

_Across the room, she heard the sound of the other girl being thrown to the floor; her own body ached in empathic protest, but she kept her mouth shut. She didn’t want to feel the agiel again, and she didn’t want to be called weak. More than either of those things, though, she didn’t want her newfound companion, whoever she was, to be threatened on her account. Cara was a good girl. She would behave herself, and she would do everything she was told._

_“You are showing so much potential,” her mistress murmured, suddenly close to her ear. “You could become great, Cara. Do you want that?”_

_“I just want to go home,” Cara insisted plaintively._

_“That’s not going to happen,” she was informed, not for the first time. “But you have Dahlia now. She is not nearly as brave as you, Cara. You will teach her to be brave. You will teach her to be strong, like you.”_

_“Dahlia?” Cara echoed, trying to raise her head._

_She knew a Dahlia, a girl from her school. She was a quiet girl, so very different from Cara and her contagious enthusiasm. They talked a lot, about a great many things; Cara always had an adventure to share or a story to tell, and Dahlia had always been delirious with joy (as shy children so often were) at having been chosen to hear them told. Cara liked Dahlia very much, and had come to count the girl among her friends._

_She did not want Dahlia to know the horrors here._

_“Dahlia,” Mistress Nathair said, affirming Cara’s fears. “Your friend Dahlia.” Cara could feel the smile on her lips without having to see it. “I’ve seen you two. Your friendship is... touching.”_

_“Please don’t hurt her,” Cara begged. “Please...”_

_Pain screamed through her as the agiel was cracked once more across the side of her face. “Weakness, Cara.”_

_A keening cry filled the room; at first, Cara thought it was her own voice (it wouldn’t have been the first time she’d been so dissociated from her body that even her own screams were alien and unfamiliar), but she knew it couldn’t be. All of her strength was being channelled into the effort of staying conscious, and she knew that her body simply couldn’t spare the breath to form such a noise._

_It had to be Dahlia._

_The other girl hadn’t been struck, Cara was fairly certain. She hadn’t been beaten, hadn’t been subjected to the agonies of the agiel... and yet she was wailing as though the weapon had landed on her instead of Cara. The vicarious hurt struck Cara far more brutally than the lash of the rod itself, and she recoiled violently._

_Dahlia shouldn’t have been here. She shouldn’t have been forced to witness Cara’s suffering, shouldn’t have been feeling another girl’s pain as if it were her own. It wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t right, and Cara resolved to work even harder to ensure the Mord-Sith had no further reason to strike either of them. She would not let Dahlia suffer on her account, even if it meant bending herself to the will of these evil women._

_“I’m all right,” she forced out, the words tumbling from her lips as little more than a ragged gurgle. “Dahlia, don’t be scared.”_

_Mistress Nathair smiled, and Cara couldn’t help thinking she looked like a snake, all lips and no teeth._

_“You will be a very good friend to her,” she told Cara, sounding more pleased than Cara had ever heard her sound before. “You are so very strong.”_

_Cara didn’t want to be strong. She wanted to be free from here. But, if strong was what her mistress wanted from her, she knew that she had to become that._

_“Let me go to her,” she pleaded softly. “Dahlia...”_

_Across the room, Dahlia cried harder. “Cara!”_

_“You must teach her, Cara,” her mistress instructed. “Crying is weakness. Compassion is weakness. If she doesn’t learn these things, it will be all the more difficult for her. If you care for her at all, you must teach her to be strong. You must teach her to be like you.”_

_Cara nodded, scrambling across the floor as quickly as her battered body would allow. She still couldn’t see through the swaying blur that was her field of vision, but she could hear Dahlia’s cries, and could make out the shape of her trembling where she’d been thrown, and so she worked her way (limbs and muscles howling in protest of every breath) in that direction._

_And then, before she was even halfway across the lurching room, she found herself lying on her back, winded and breathless and indescribably confused, as Dahlia threw herself into her arms._

_“Cara!” she wailed, cold tears soaking Cara’s neck, even as the warmth of her body eased the throbbing ache that still roared through her. “Cara, I’m scared!”_

_More than anything, Cara wanted to be honest. She wanted to tell Dahlia that she was scared too, that she was in pain and frightened of the agiels and terrified of the rats, and afraid, more than anything else, of the women who were doing all these things. She wanted Dahlia to know that she wasn’t alone, that they were both scared, and that it was all right because they were together now. She wanted Dahlia to know that they could share the pain and the fear with each other now, that it was okay to be scared and to be hurt and to be everything else. But she knew, without even having to glance back at the vision-blurred form of Mistress Nathair, that saying any of those things would get her beaten again – and Dahlia too – and so she didn’t say any of them._

_“Fear is weakness,” she choked out, the words causing her stomach to churn so violently it was all she could do to keep from retching. “We need to be strong.”_

_“I don’t want to be strong,” Dahlia whispered, for Cara’s ears only. “I want to go home. I want my family. Cara, I want my family!”_

_Cara wanted those things too. Dahlia’s words hurt her, cut deeply into wounds that were already bleeding, but she couldn’t let the other girl see that. She couldn’t let Dahlia see her weakness, because then Dahlia would be weak too, and it would only cause more pain for them both._

_She didn’t know what to say, if she couldn’t speak the truth; she knew only that everything she felt seemed to fall under her mistress’s definition of ‘weakness’, and that it would get them beaten. All she wanted was to help, to stop Dahlia being afraid, to let Dahlia be a comfort to her too, to protect and be protected in kind by the only other person in this abominable place that was like her, but she didn’t know what to do._

_“You’re my friend,” she said at last, because it was all she could think of. “We’re friends, aren’t we, Dahlia?”_

_Dahlia managed a tearful, shaky nod, and the sight of it gave Cara courage._

_“We’re friends,” she repeated, stronger. “That’s just as good as family.”_

*

Kahlan had thought she’d been prepared.

Zedd had warned her about the pain, about the suffering, about the beatings and the breakings and every other kind of horror she could imagine. He’d told her that she’d be bearing witness to everything Cara had ever experienced, from the intimacies her other self had shared with Dahlia through to the brutality of their training. He’d told her that, and she’d braced herself for it. It had been torture, holding Cara as the memories had left her reeling in spasms brought on by imagined agiels, but she’d endured it because she’d had to. As much as it had torn her heart asunder to see Cara in such inescapable pain, she’d held her through it, and she’d been strong.

But this was different. This was worse. This was nothing she’d ever seen before.

This was _friendship_.

Hearing it fall from Cara’s lips, those words that she couldn’t say, cut Kahlan so deeply that she could barely breathe.

She remembered, vividly, the time they’d spent in the tomb. Kahlan had watched the conflict as it clutched and clawed at her companion, rendering them both helpless in its wake; Cara had fought to tell Kahlan how much she’d meant to her, had visibly struggled with all her strength to express her emotions (emotions that Kahlan knew were unfamiliar and frightening to her, but which meant enough for her to try and find voice for them nonetheless) because she’d thought they would die in that place.

It had both touched and wounded Kahlan to see those things, those _feelings_ rolling like waves through Cara’s eyes, and to know beyond all doubt that she would never find it within herself to put them into words. She had come so far, far enough to know that what she felt for the Mother Confessor was more than the disdainful bitterness that had been bred within her, far enough to know that it could be defined, that it was something pure and beautiful, that it _needed_ to be named... but not far enough (never quite far enough) to speak the words.

Those words had come easily to this Cara. To a Cara under the influence of a spell, living another woman’s life, not even fully recovered from what Kahlan could tell was a soul-shattering beating, the word ‘friend’ had rolled off her tongue as though it was the most natural thing in the world for her to say. And, for all her empathetic superiority, for all her prowess in understanding and harnessing emotions, for all her intimacy with feelings... Kahlan couldn’t deny that she was jealous.

It was why Cara had needed this, she knew, but that didn’t stop it stinging. All she could do was watch, connected but so agonisingly distant as Cara murmured endearments to an invisible Dahlia, friendship and compassion flowing from within her like it was blood and water combined. Was this what Cara had been like before she was trained? Was this the little girl that the Mord-Sith had taken and destroyed so that no trace of her remained? Was that compassionate child inside the Cara she knew, or was this moment exclusive to a Cara who had been broken with Dahlia?

Part of her didn’t want to know. That part insisted that she simply sit back and relish these moments, these rare flashes of humanity in a woman who had lost it a lifetime ago; that part insisted, loudly enough that it almost drowned out everything else, that she look into the face of the woman she thought she knew, and learn something from this. She should be grateful, it told her, blessed that she could see this at all, and why did it matter who Cara was talking to? Didn’t Kahlan know that she’d meant it for her as well, in the tomb, even if she hadn’t actually been able to say it?

The rest of her, and that was the part that frightened her even through the jealousy, wanted to know everything. All of it, the good and the bad and the downright painful. She wanted to know the differences and the similarities and all the parts of that Cara and her Cara and every other Cara in every other world Zedd had unintentionally made out of nothing. It wasn’t enough to see them played out like a puppet-show in front of her; she needed to _understand_ them as well. This was Cara’s life, at least as close to it as she would ever know, and she wanted to drink it all down. It was the closest thing to actual sharing she would ever see, and she wanted every last breath of it.

And yet, she still couldn’t suppress the petulant ache within her that demanded in spite of herself to know why it had been so damn hard for Cara to just say those words to _her_. It didn’t sound so difficult now, hearing the word – ‘friend’ – spilling again and again from the Mord-Sith’s lips. Quite the contrary, it was effortless, seamless, and simple beyond measure. It was everything that friendship should be.

Hating herself, Kahlan wished it was hers.

*

_The instant they were left alone, Dahlia began to cry anew. Cara knew better than to expect that her lapse of strength would go unpunished, but she couldn’t bring herself to explain that to Dahlia. Not now. Not yet. Dahlia had only just got here, Cara could tell, and she needed to shed her tears. She needed to vent her pain and her fear and her heart, and she felt safe enough in Cara’s arms to do that. Who was Cara to tell her ‘no’?_

_“I’m sorry,” she murmured instead, hearing her voice thicken with unshed tears of her own and with the pain (pulsing through every part of her that the agiel had touched) that inched ever closer to the surface with each breath she took._

_“It’s not your fault,” Dahlia told her tearfully._

_That wasn’t true, and Cara knew it. Dahlia was only in this place because of her. She was frightened and she was going to be beaten again and again and again, just like Cara had been, and it was all because Cara had been foolish enough to not want to be alone with the rats. It was her fault, completely. She hadn’t been strong enough to endure the beatings and the rats by herself, and now Dahlia was going to suffer for her weakness. It was her fault. It was all her fault._

_Seeming to sense that Cara didn’t believe her, Dahlia leaned back, gazing deep into Cara’s bruise-swollen eyes, and the warmth that Cara saw there (so different to the icy malice of the Mord-Sith, so beautiful and so welcome and so much like the child that Cara was already forgetting how to be) caused a shiver to ripple through the entire length of her body._

_“We’re friends,” Dahlia reminded her, smiling through the terror and the tears and the trauma she hadn’t yet begun to endure. “Even if it was your fault – which it_ wasn’t _, Cara! – I forgive you. That’s what friends do.”_

_Of course, she was right. Friends did forgive each other. They cared about each other, loved each other like family, and it didn’t matter that they sometimes hurt each other too, just as long as they didn’t mean it. Friends understood that it wasn’t intentional, and Dahlia understood that Cara would never have wanted this to happen._

_Despite herself, despite everything that had happened to her and the knowledge that it would all be happening again soon, and to both of them this time, Cara felt a near-genuine smile struggling to work its way through her broken jaw._

_“I’m glad you’re here,” she admitted, so quietly that she was sure her mistress wouldn’t be able to hear._

_Dahlia mumbled something that Cara couldn’t quite make out. She tried to raise an eyebrow, to ask the other girl to repeat herself, but she didn’t have the energy. Instead, she let her head fall forward, smiling tiredly as Dahlia (still sniffling) allowed her to rest for a moment on her shoulder, and sighed with something that was almost solace as her friend’s thin fingers trailed through the tangled mass of her hair with something that was almost love._

_“I missed you...” Dahlia whispered, breath warm against the side of Cara’s head. Warm. Soothing. Comforting. Dahlia. “At school,” she went on, elaborating. “I missed your stories.”_

_Ignoring the agony that tore through her muscles as she moved, Cara brought up her arms, pulling Dahlia into a too-tight hug._

_“I missed you too,” she whispered._

_It wasn’t exactly the truth; perhaps she would have genuinely missed her friend in time, but this world was still so new and so fresh and so painful that all she’d had time to miss was her family. Her mother, her father, her sister._

_But then, she’d told Dahlia that friends were family too. So it wasn’t really a lie, either._

_They stayed like that for a long while, just holding each other and both drawing silent strength from the presence of a familiar body. It was so strange and so profound, so much like home; after two days of beatings and solitude and rats and pain and things that no child so young should ever see or feel or go through, Cara could have stayed that way forever. Being held and loved, being touched and comforted by a true friend, being in the company of someone she cared about... it was the most beautiful thing she had ever felt._

_“Does it hurt?” Dahlia asked after a moment, breaking the silence and drawing back once more to stare anxiously at Cara’s bruised and battered body._

_Unable to find the strength to lie, Cara mustered a nod. “Worse than anything.” She drew in a breath, not bothering to hide the discomfort, knowing that Dahlia would not judge her for the moment’s weakness. “It feels like dying.”_

_Dahlia whimpered. “I’m scared.”_

_Cara pulled her into another hug, feeling her entire body melting dizzily at the way the other girl trembled and shook in her arms, more delicate than a leaf on a spring breeze, more fragile than a night wisp. This was why she needed to be strong, Cara decided. She would swallow the tears, fight the fear, ignore even the rats’ teeth and claws. She would be brave, and she would be strong, and she would be all the things her mistress told her to be. She would be everything, for Dahlia._

_“I won’t let them hurt you,” she murmured, feeling the truth of the words rising up white-hot inside her. “I promise.”_


	8. Chapter 8

Within an hour, the unnatural heat that had radiated from Cara’s skin almost from the moment the spell had first taken effect had developed into a near-blazing fever. Kahlan could scarcely stand to keep her bare hands on the sweat-kissed skin of Cara’s brow, and the niggling unease she’d felt as the unresponsive Mord-Sith’s temperature had started to rise was almost at breaking point. She wanted to call for Zedd, to demand that he tell her whether this was supposed to have happened or whether she was justified in worrying as much as she was... but, at the same time, she didn’t want to leave Cara’s side for even the half-minute it would take to find him.

Besides which, Cara seemed mostly oblivious to her raging temperature anyway. It gave Kahlan some small shard of reassurance to see that in her, though not as much as she would have liked; truthfully, she suspected that whatever discomfort Cara was suffering in the spell had probably made the fever seem insignificant.

When she wasn’t mumbling hollow reassurances to a nonexistent Dahlia, she was tossing and turning like a feather in a storm, obviously suffering yet more unimaginable torture at the hands of the women who would ultimately go on to break her completely. It was tragic to watch, and all the more so for Kahlan, stuck as she was in a world where Cara was not, forced to watch from a distance of so much more than the few inches between them as even her most earnest endeavours to offer some ghost of comfort went completely ignored.

She tried to tell herself (though she knew it wasn’t true) that Cara’s lack of response wouldn’t have bothered her quite so much if she hadn’t been so willing to respond with great enthusiasm to the same futile offerings when they came from the imaginary Dahlia.

Every now and then, just as Kahlan gave up on yet another string of desperate pleas for Cara to hear her and take solace in her presence, the Mord-Sith would stir, relaxing almost imperceptibly, and murmur dry-throated thanks to someone that didn’t exist. Pledges of friendship, vows of affection, whimpers of gratitude, half-choked promises of eternal protection... and all for a woman who would go on to betray her and then be wiped out of existence by a clumsy (but well-meaning) wizard. It hardly seemed fair.

The jealousy that had been bubbling within Kahlan had, for the most part, been cast aside in deference to the worry she felt over Cara’s ever-increasing temperature, but she couldn’t deny that it would surface without warning every now and then – and, of course, usually at inopportune moments. So, when Cara gave a real, genuine smile, one that exuded a warmth which had nothing to do with the fever heat that seared every exposed inch of her skin, Kahlan’s fingers tightened over her still-gloved hand with an intensity that would have been painful even to a Mord-Sith, if she’d been conscious to feel it.

“Is she really so important to you?” Kahlan demanded, and she wasn’t entirely sure whether the question was directed at the spell-afflicted Cara or at the green-eyed monster within herself.

She knew that the Cara she saw now was only nine years old. She knew that she was looking at a little girl taken from her family and friends and everything she’d known and believed in, that she and Dahlia were just two children clinging to each other in the vain hope that together they would survive the breaking process with some semblance of their shattering humanity still intact. She knew all that, but it didn’t quell the sting.

She wished, so fiercely it frightened her, that she could be there in Dahlia’s place. Even knowing what the Mord-Sith did to the children they wanted to break, she wished it, and not just so that she could be the one giving Cara all those things she so clearly needed. She wanted to be there because she wanted to feel what Cara was feeling, to go to that place, to endure those things more painful than anyone (least of all a nine-year-old girl) should ever have to endure. She wanted to know, to feel, to understand. She wanted to share Cara’s trauma.

They had been travelling together for more than a year. Kahlan had convinced herself that she knew who Cara was, that she knew, so much more intimately than Richard, the ever-evolving Mord-Sith who worked beside her in a joint bid to protect the Seeker. She had never wanted anything from Cara, not even in the tomb; even after the initial hatred had washed away in the rain of genuine friendship, she’d always accepted the inability to express her feelings as just part of who Cara was. It hurt, deeper than she’d care to admit, to see now that there were parts of her (parts of this woman she thought she knew) that were so very different.

Once, a long time ago, Cara had known what it was to feel. Kahlan had always just assumed, being hardened as she was against the Mord-Sith and their methods, that it was just the way those women were. Even knowing what she did about Cara’s breaking, the way she’d been tortured and manipulated until there was no soul left within her, she hadn’t ever truly been able to believe it. The remorse, yes, the guilt for the things she’d done... oh, she’d understood that, and believed it as well. But the feeling? The emotion? That, she was sure, had come later.

Though her rational mind had known that the glimmers of innocence she’d seen in Cara must have spawned from somewhere, she’d carefully (almost deliberately) ignored the voice that had insisted those things were as much part of Cara as the hardness.

It had been their doing, she’d told herself. Cara had softened, evolved, humanised, learned to feel... and all of those things, Kahlan had believed, she had done because of them. Richard, Kahlan, Zedd. Every good thing Cara had done was a beautifully-shaped product of Richard’s faith, Zedd’s acceptance, and Kahlan’s compassion. Those things were _hers_ , and no imaginary Dahlia had the right to take them from her.

She’d known, of course, that Cara had been a child when she was taken. But that she’d been _this_ child? A child still capable of friendship and love, even when under the influence of the Mord-Sith and their undeniably numerous skills? A child who still remembered what emotion was, who still knew to hug and hold and comfort a friend, a child who remembered how to admit that she was scared and in pain, a child that saw the badness in what that the Mord-Sith tried to breed in her every day? Not that child. Surely not.

And to see it, to bear witness from a distance of worlds, as the Cara she knew was lost in a haze of memories that weren’t hers, lost to the feelings and emotions of this child? It was making her re-think all the things she’d ever known about the woman she’d been so damn sure she knew everything about.

On the bed, Cara shifted, a low moan catching somewhere in her throat.

The sound, small and simple as it was, brought Kahlan’s attention back to the task at hand with staggering swiftness; it was nothing like the soft sounds of agiel-induced suffering she’d been letting out with slowly-decreasing frequency ever since the spell had first taken effect. Oh, there was still pain in the sound, that much was readily apparent, but it was something completely different to all the hurt she’d seen in Cara thus far; without even thinking, she brought her hand back up to trail through Cara’s hair and rest once more upon her brow.

“Don’t,” Cara mumbled, dizzy and unsteady.

Kahlan blinked. “Cara? Are you all ri—”

“ _Don’t_.”

Carefully, not wanting to disturb her any more than she apparently had, Kahlan withdrew her hand. She was, she knew perfectly well, reading far too deeply into the Mord-Sith’s outcry; Cara was no doubt talking to Dahlia, or perhaps one of her tormenters, any one of a thousand possible others who were probably giving her ample reason to want them to stop what they were doing. It was a coincidence, of course, that the words had come just as Kahlan had touched her, and every rational corner of the Mother Confessor’s mind insisted that Cara couldn’t possibly be talking to her.

...but that didn’t change the fact that, as soon as she removed her hand from the Mord-Sith’s too-hot brow, Cara settled back into an almost-calm silence.

*

_Dahlia was panicking._

_Cara knew it, and she wanted to set her friend’s mind at ease, but she simply didn’t have the strength to even raise her head, much less use it to form the words that were swimming like half-dead fish in the murky recesses of her brain. She longed to reach out, to take Dahlia’s hand, to tell her again and again and again that she was fine, that there was nothing wrong, that she would be fine forever so long as Dahlia was there with her... but she couldn’t. She couldn’t move, could scarcely breathe, could barely think. She couldn’t do anything, least of all be there for Dahlia._

_“I don’t know what to do!” Dahlia was sobbing, and her helplessness caused a spark of panic to ignite somewhere deep within Cara. “Cara, you have to tell me what to do!”_

_“Don’t...” she managed in reply. She wanted to say ‘don’t do anything’, but the extra two words were too much for her parched throat to force out._

_“I have to do something,” Dahlia whimpered. “Cara, you’re sick.”_

_Cara clenched her jaw, forced herself to breathe. “Don’t.”_

_It was the rats’ fault. Everything was the rats’ fault. Dahlia wouldn’t have even been here in this wretched place if Cara had just been brave enough to ignore them in the first place. But she hadn’t, and it had just gotten worse once Dahlia started sharing her cell._

_Dahlia wasn’t afraid of the rats like Cara was. She was far more afraid of the agiels; the rats were little more to Dahlia than little fur-covered annoyances. So she held Cara’s hand, whispered heartfelt reassurances in her ear, and let Cara know (over and over, until she truly believed it) that she wasn’t alone. They could survive the rats and their relentlessly biting teeth and their too-sharp claws, so long as they were together._

_Cara, in her childish foolishness, had believed her._

_She’d ignored the rats. She’d paid them no mind as they’d approached, barely even blinked as they’d leaped upon her... and they, in turn, had only been emboldened by her so-called courage. They came at her in ever-increasing numbers, more and more once it became apparent she wasn’t fighting them off, and Cara – wanting to show Dahlia how brave she was with the other girl’s hand, vicelike and familiar, in hers – sat there and let them. She let them bite her, let them crawl over her, claw and gnaw at her. She let them do all the rat-like things they wanted, because she was strong. Because she would be strong for Dahlia._

_It had taken no time at all for the countless scratches and bite-marks to grow red and sore, and less time even than that for them to become swollen and infected. Cara felt hot and sick all the time, barely able to remain conscious even when she wasn’t being beaten by her mistress; she hadn’t even been able to summon enough energy to offer her hand to Dahlia in kind when the other girl had pleadingly begged for Cara’s comfort after a particularly brutal training session._

_Far more than the growing feverishness, Cara’s pain came most of all from knowing that she was letting Dahlia down. Her friend was here because of her, because Cara was afraid of the rats and hadn’t wanted to be alone with them; Dahlia had made her brave in the face of the little beasts, but now she was too weak to protect her in return. It was her fault that Dahlia was here, and she would have given anything to be strong enough (truly strong, not strong in the way Mistress Nathair told her she was strong) to give Dahlia even a fragment of what she had given Cara... but she was afraid of what her mistress would do to them both if she showed weakness in admitting she needed help._

_“I don’t know how to take care of you,” Dahlia said miserably._

_Cara smiled, allowing herself just a moment of comfort by resting her head in Dahlia’s lap, and drinking in the other girl’s familiar warmth. “You_ are _taking care of me,” she promised, a hoarse whisper. “You are, Dahlia.”_

_“I’m...” Dahlia swallowed, and Cara knew she was trying to reconcile what she was feeling with the knowledge that it was something that should never be voiced. Still, though she clearly knew it was foolish, she said it anyway. “I’m scared for you, Cara.”_

_Even though she’d been expecting it, a frustrated growl fought its way through the discomfort to break from Cara’s throat._

_“Don’t,” she said again, harder this time. “You know fear is weakness. You_ know _it, Dahlia. If you show fear, they’ll hurt you.” Slowly, achingly, she sat up, just enough to cup Dahlia’s chin between fingers that wouldn’t stop shaking. “I can’t bear to see them hurt you, Dahlia...”_

_“I can’t bear to see you sick,” Dahlia replied. “I need you.”_

_“Don’t,” Cara forced out, a hacking groan. “Don’t.”_

_“It’s true,” Dahlia insisted, and Cara closed her eyes against the words; it hurt too much to keep them open, anyway. “You make me brave. When you’re holding my hand, I’m not frightened.”_

_As desperately as Cara wanted to insist that Dahlia stop saying those things, that they were weakness and would get them both in trouble if they were heard, it warmed her heart to hear them. She was the reason why Dahlia was here in the first place, her weakness and foolishness, her fear of the rats. It was her fault, and it made her happy (or as close to it as she could get in this place) to know that she was helping to make the experience less unbearable for her friend. She owed Dahlia so much more than that, but those touches, the tight-fisted squeezes of her hand when the agiels came... they were all she had to offer, and so she gave them freely and prayed each time that they would be enough. She was glad that they were._

_And she hated that the rats had taken them away from her._

_“Let me tell Mistress Nathair,” Dahlia begged. “Please.”_

_Cara shook her head, coughing roughly. “She’ll hurt you.”_

_“She_ always _hurts me!”_

_For the first time since they’d first laid eyes on each other, Dahlia was truly angry; though her eyes were still closed, Cara could feel the shift in her, the sudden tension flaring up in every inch of her wire-thin frame, and she shivered despite the fever heat that arced and coiled through her like snakes struck by lightning. She hadn’t known Dahlia was capable of anger, or that she herself was capable of bringing it out in her, and she didn’t know whether to be afraid or proud._

_“She always hurts me,” Dahlia repeated, softer. “All the time, Cara. It’s only because of you that I don’t feel it when she does. I need you, Cara. I need you. I need you to keep me strong, to keep me brave. I need you to keep me_ alive _. You can’t do that if you’re sick.”_

_Her body tensed where it pillowed Cara’s head. Cara felt her own flinch in kind, and hated how sick it made her feel._

_“What if it gets worse, Cara? What then? You could—”_

*

“I’m not going to die!”

Kahlan almost fell off the bed at the vehemence in Cara’s voice. Until now, all her murmurings (at least, those that weren’t agonised screams) had been quiet and indistinct, coming as if from across a great distance... but this was something else entirely, a forceful hurricane of real emotion that left Kahlan staggered.

“Cara,” she managed, a little helpless. “You’re all right.”

“I’m all right,” Cara echoed, and Kahlan blinked in surprise again. “I’m all right. I’m not... I’m not _sick_ , Dahlia.”

Despite the obvious falsehood in the words, Kahlan breathed a sigh of relief; if Cara was unwell in the spell, it was possible (at least, she reasoned it was) that she would be feverish outside it as well. Zedd had told her that Cara’s experiences wouldn’t truly be happening, however real they seemed to her (and the lack of blemishes from her beatings was all the evidence Kahlan needed to confirm that), but Kahlan supposed an internal defence mechanism like a raised temperature might have been triggered if Cara’s mind believed strongly enough that it had a genuine sickness to fight, even if it didn’t.

Acting on instinct, she climbed to her feet, crossing to the semi-functional washbasin in the corner of the room. A quick glance around told her that there was nothing in the vicinity that could be used as a washcloth, and so Kahlan improvised (without so much as a second thought) by tearing a rough strip of fabric from her skirt. 

She’d have time enough to lament the damage and repair it later, she supposed, especially if she was likely to spend the next few days in this very room with an unresponsive Cara, but for now she needed the fabric to ease the Mord-Sith’s discomfort, and that took priority.

Lingering at the basin for just long enough to make sure that the shred of material was suitably wetted, she returned swiftly to Cara’s side and gently placed the damp shred of fabric over her brow. In response, Cara mumbled something indistinct and rolled onto her side; Kahlan wasn’t sure if it was a response to the coolness on her skin or to something that was going on in the spell, but she continued to dab at Cara’s overheated forehead even so. Even if the gesture wasn’t offering any comfort to her mind, it was at least cooling her feverish body.

“Don’t...” Cara mumbled again. “Please.... just stay.”

Kahlan sighed; she wanted to call out, to insist that she was there, that she would be there until the spell had run its course, just as she’d promised she would be, to tell Cara (and mean it with all her soul) that she would always be there... but she knew, beyond all doubt this time, that Cara’s words had not been for her ears. Cara wasn’t aware of her presence, wasn’t speaking to her, and didn’t particularly care if Kahlan was there or not. It wasn’t for Cara’s peace of mind that Kahlan had been commissioned to watch over her; it was for the care of her body, and that was all Kahlan could attend to.

“I won’t...” Cara babbled, and Kahlan sighed. “I promised. I promised I wouldn’t let them... and I won’t... I can’t...” She swallowed hard, biting down hard on her lower lip. “Don’t leave me. I have to look after you. I have to. Dahlia... if I don’t... if you... if I can’t protect you—”

*

_“—you have to let_ me _protect_ you _!” Dahlia cried._

_Cara wanted to burst into tears, but she didn’t. She was the strong one. Mistress Nathair had told her so. It was her duty to protect Dahlia, to look after her, to care for her. She’d already taken her away from everything she had ever known and every happiness she would have known in a future she’d never see now. She had destroyed Dahlia’s life with her weakness, and she would not let Dahlia be broken for her. She was not worth that. She didn’t deserve that sacrifice._

_“Cara,” Dahlia went on, voice barely above a whisper. “Cara, please. I can’t bear to see you suffer. It pains me even more than the agiels. It makes me hurt.” She hesitated, and drew in a struggling breath. “You make me hurt._ You _, Cara. When you’re like this... you make me hurt.”_

_That was the last thing Cara wanted. She longed to surge up, to take Dahlia’s face in her hands, to hold her and look into her eyes and tell her beyond all doubt that she was fine. She wasn’t sick. She was just exhausted. She was fine. She had plenty of strength to protect Dahlia, to hold her hand and to look after her and do everything she had vowed to do. She was fine, she wasn’t sick at all._

_She was fine._

_She was... fine..._

_She... was..._

_...she was fooling nobody._

_Dahlia could see the sickness churning within her as easily as she could feel it within herself. As hard as she tried to keep the suffering inside, she couldn’t; it was a different kind of torture to the lash of the agiels, and, in its own way, it was even more unbearable. When the agiels were gone, the pain was allowed time to heal. But this... even when Cara was alone, even when the rats chose to sleep rather than nibble at her, there was no stopping the torrent of nauseous agony. It was ceaseless, boundless, relentless. It was unending._

_But she didn’t want to surrender to it. Surrender was weakness, and she was strong. She had to be strong. If she let herself be weak, even for a moment, her mistresses would take it out on Dahlia. If she let her façade slip, let a single tear fall, let even a ghost of the pain she was feeling leak into her breathing, she would be beaten to within an inch of her life and then forced to watch as the same was done to Dahlia. She knew that._

_The pain in herself, she could tolerate (it would take her mind off the sickness), but she could not watch Dahlia endure it too. Not after she’d sworn to take care of her. Not after she had promised._

_She felt so sick, though. So very, very unwell. And, for all her strength and her courage and all the things Mistress Nathair praised in her, she just wanted it to end. The pain, the inability to move without those countless little bite-marks threatening to drive her into unconsciousness, the reeling nausea, the way the room pitched and lurched if she so much as breathed too quickly. Most of all, the fever that blazed through her and exacerbated all the other things to the point of near-death. All of it, every last unbearable thing. She wanted to be weak, to be healed, to be helped._

_She wanted to be a child._

_“You are so good to me,” Dahlia murmured against her ear, gentle fingers brushing across Cara’s face and soothing her with their cool softness. “You care so much, Cara. Let me care for you.”_

_Cara choked, and the sound was surrender. “I don’t want... to let you down...”_

_Dahlia’s lips touched her forehead, supplication and comfort burning in equal measure. “Never, Cara,” she promised._

*

Kahlan couldn’t remember a time in recent memory where she’d been more relieved than she was as she felt the searing heat of Cara’s temperature slowly beginning to subside. Whatever was affecting her in the spell, it seemed to be passing, and Kahlan tossed the now-blazing scrap of fabric into the washbasin as she rushed to clutch once again at Cara’s limp, leather-covered hand.

Delirious, Cara mumbled something; her voice was cracked and parched, and Kahlan wondered with a frustrated frown whether she should do anything about that. If she offered a drink of water, would it make Cara choke? Would she even be able to drink at all, even if she needed to? There were so many questions, so many concerns, and they seemed to mount higher and higher with every passing moment. The tiniest gestures, the most insignificant things... everything spawned confusion, worry, anxiety; everything, it seemed, fuelled the surging helplessness that clung to Kahlan’s soul and made her hate herself.

“Are you thirsty?” she asked the motionless Mord-Sith; she knew there would be no reply, but she needed to fill the void. “And I don’t mean for ale.”

Cara didn’t even crack a smile, much less a chuckle.

Kahlan sighed; giving up hope on getting a coherent response from her charge, she took matters into her own hand. Climbing once again to her feet, she shuffled across the room to where their supplies were resting, and fumbled for a waterskin. It would have been a far easier task, she reasoned, if she could only take her eyes off Cara for long enough to find the damn thing by sight as well as touch.

“I’m telling you now,” she told Cara, “if you choke, you only have yourself to blame. You could’ve said ‘no’. You could’ve said anything, but you didn’t. So now I have to figure this all out by myself, because you know how useless Zedd is... and Richard isn’t even worth mentioning – not when it comes to this, anyway – and you... you’re not exactly helping either, are you?”

She gulped air, frustrated beyond words. Cara whimpered.

“You’re the one who asked for this, Cara,” she went on, “not me. You’re the one who told Zedd to cast the spell, you’re the one who told me to hold your hand and make sure you don’t hurt yourself and... _dammit_ , Cara, I don’t know what you want from me! Can’t you just tell me what to do?”

She’d intended it as a self-deprecating monologue, something through which she could entertain herself and vent all the hopelessness that she wasn’t quite able to fully suppress, while at the same time filling the ominous silence that stretched out between them. But it hadn’t ended that way, and she’d felt the control slipping like sand through her fingers with each word that spilled from her lips; the hopelessness had won, and by the time she’d finished speaking (Cara still blessedly oblivious), she was almost in tears.

Clutching the waterskin as though it was the only thing keeping her from breaking down completely (and perhaps, she mused, it was), she returned to Cara’s side, using her free hand to brush another stray lock of hair out of her face. 

“I envy you,” she said, not really knowing where the words were coming from. “You’re there. You’re under the spell, and whatever you’re going through, you know how it ends. You know you’re going to be all right, you know you’re going to wake up, and you’re going to be here, with us, with me and Richard and Zedd... and _loved_ , Cara. You know all that. But I don’t. I don’t know how to make sure you’re still breathing when you come out of this.” She closed her eyes tightly, loathing the thoughts that rippled like raindrops across the usually-tranquil surface of her mind. “Why must you make me feel so much for you?”

Slowly, afraid of what would happen if she moved too fast, she held the waterskin to Cara’s lips. Cara moaned, the sound a seamless blend of discomfort and relief, and Kahlan tipped the smallest amount of water into her half-open mouth. Most of it, much to her dismay, fell onto the pillow, but a few rogue droplets found their destination, and it made Kahlan smile more than it should have to watch as Cara’s tongue snaked out to collect the few that clung to her bottom lip. She was still in there. Some part of her was still in there.

“Better?” Kahlan asked after a moment, taking the waterskin back.

“Better,” Cara mumbled.

Kahlan, surprised, fell off the bed.

*

_“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” her mistress said, with a smile that was too cruel to be genuine._

_Trembling, curled up in a ball, Cara huddled against the far wall. “Th... thank you, Mistress.”_

_They were alone in the cell, Dahlia having been taken away to endure her punishment for having asked for help, and Cara was afraid. She had barely recovered from the infection, had barely had the chance to thank her mistress for taking care of her, and already the rats were back, swarming around her like the vermin they were. If it was possible, she was more afraid of them now than she had been before, knowing as she did exactly what their bites could do to her if left unchecked... and, without Dahlia’s hand in hers, without her friend’s soft voice telling her not to be afraid of them, there was nothing to keep the flood of that fear from spilling over._

_Still smiling the same frozen smile, Mistress Nathair crossed what little space was between them. “You don’t have to suffer these little beasts any longer, Cara.”_

_Cara frowned; she didn’t like the tone in her mistress’s voice, but was too frightened to say anything._

_“If you want to get rid of them,” Mistress Nathair went on, and Cara could tell she was speaking slowly on purpose, watching for a reaction, “all you have to do is kill them.”_

_Cara recoiled as Mistress Nathair extended the hand that still held her agiel, inclining her head, gesturing for Cara to take it. As if the agiel was a precious gift instead of the death-dealer Cara knew it to be. For her part, ever more frightened, Cara huddled a little more tightly against the wall, hugging her knees._

_“I don’t want to kill anything.”_

_“Would you rather they kill you?” Mistress Nathair demanded, impatient and aggravated, and Cara quickly shook her head; she knew better by now than to dare try and contradict her mistress. “Then listen to me carefully, Cara – in this world, it is kill or be killed.”_

_Cara fought back a whimper. Ignoring her discomfort, Mistress Nathair pressed on._

_“If you want to die the death of a thousand little nibbles, that is your decision to make.” It was clear from her voice exactly what she thought of that particular choice. “But, if you consider your life more important than a rat’s...” She paused for a couple of excruciatingly long heartbeats, and Cara knew she was waiting for the impact of the words to sink in. “...then you_ must _kill them.”_

_Though she knew it would get her a double beating during her next training session, Cara recoiled as her mistress placed the agiel with surprising gentleness on the floor in front of her. She remained there for only a few moments more, eyes locked with the little girl, and Cara struggled with every ounce of strength she had within her (not very much, still recovering as she was from the infection) to keep from crying. She couldn’t cry. She wouldn’t cry. Not until she was safe and alone._

_Without another word, Mistress Nathair turned and left, slamming the door behind her and leaving Cara with only the softly humming agiel for company._

_For some time, she could only stare at the small rod as it sat there, so innocuous and unintimidating, beside her. It looked so small when it wasn’t in the hands of her mistress, and Cara could scarcely believe that something so little could cause such pain. It was just a rod, just a little stick, so small and unassuming and simple. Part of her wanted to reach out and take it, to see if holding it would make her strong and fearless like the Mord-Sith who wielded them with such excruciating skill, but she didn’t. She didn’t want to kill the rats. For all the pain they’d caused her, she didn’t want to hurt them in kind._

_The rats were just being rats. They nibbled on her because they didn’t know not to. It wasn’t their fault that they frightened her, and it wasn’t their fault that they’d hurt her and made her sick. She didn’t want to punish them for just being what they were, and she didn’t want to kill them. She couldn’t bear the thought of killing any living thing, not even one of her tormenters._

_But her mistress had made it clear that she had no choice. Cara didn’t truly believe that her life was worth any more than the lives of the rats, but she knew that she needed to stay alive. Not for herself (given the choice, she would sooner let the rats take her and end the suffering that seemed like it would never end), but hers was not the only life to consider any more. Mistress Nathair had placed Dahlia into her care, under her protection. Dahlia was here because of Cara –_ for _Cara – and Cara would not let her endure the tortures of this place alone._

_Carefully, she extended a hand, shaking fingers hovering over the pulsing weapon and breath coming in ragged gasps as she sought deep within herself for the courage to pick it up and do what needed to be done._

_If she let the rats live, they would devour her, make her sick again, and ultimately kill her; wasn’t that what her mistress had been telling her? She would be dead, and free from the pain, but her friend – her_ Dahlia _– would still be alive, and she would need someone to protect her. She needed Cara... and so, whether she wanted to or not, Cara needed to stay alive._

_Emboldened by the knowledge of what had to be done, and why, Cara let her fingers close around the handle of the agiel._

*

The scream tore through Kahlan as though the pain was hers as well.

“Cara!” she cried, not caring that she wouldn’t be heard. She couldn’t sit idly by, not this time, not with the raw shriek still reverberating within her.

Cara had suffered, she knew, almost non-stop from the moment the spell had taken effect, but she hadn’t screamed. Not like this.

There had been whimpers and moans, stifled sobs and suppressed wails, plaintive cries and fleeting murmurs about weakness that had led Kahlan to assume that Cara had landed somewhere in the middle of her first breaking (had she come in at the beginning, Kahlan knew that nothing in the world would have prevented the screams that spawned from one’s first lash with an agiel). There had been shivers and spasms, flinches and twitches, and more than a thousand other things that had painted a too-vivid picture of exactly what she had been going through... but there had been no screams. Not true ones, irrepressible and from the gut. Not the kind of screams that couldn’t be held back, however strong Cara believed herself to be.

Nothing like _this_.

When the tortured sound ended, leaving the room ringing with its echo and every nerve in Kahlan’s body frayed and snapped, the Mother Confessor expected to hear it followed by words. A plea, maybe, or another strangled sob, or more talk of weakness. She didn’t know what, exactly, but she knew she expected _something_. Some evidence of what was happening, what the Mord-Sith in Cara’s mind had done to make her scream like that. Kahlan wanted to know, desperately, so that she could hate Cara’s ex-sisters even more than she already did.

Nothing followed, though. No cries, no pleas, barely even a whimper. The slightest hint of a sniffle, maybe, though even that might have been Kahlan’s imagination. Certainly no words.

For a moment, Kahlan would have given anything to hear Cara speak, even if it was just to further give voice to her pain. And then, less than a heartbeat later, she would have given everything she owned to take that wish back, as another high-pitched howl tore through Cara’s body.

This one lasted even longer than the first, and Kahlan was torn between hating herself for having hoped for an end to the silence, and casting her own thoughts aside in deference to genuine concern for the ailing woman; neither emotion was helpful, of course, so it didn’t really matter, and she watched in tortured horror as the second scream, when it finally died (what seemed like hours later) left Cara hoarse and choking in its wake.

“Oh, Cara,” Kahlan heard herself cry, suddenly fighting back tears of her own. “What can I do for you? Tell me. What can I do?”

Knowing she wouldn’t get a response, however urgently she prayed for one, she took the decision into her own dubious hands. Moving slowly but with purpose, she climbed onto the bed, ignoring how little room there was (scarcely enough for Cara alone, much less for the both of them), and pulled the Mord-Sith into her arms. She held on tightly, surrounding her, feeding her warmth and love and as many things as she could muster, willing even just a fragment of what she felt to break through the walls and worlds between them, even as she knew it was impossible.

It broke her heart that Cara didn’t resist.

Another wail followed the second, and then another, the space between them growing smaller and smaller, until each one was simply a continuation of the last. Kahlan had never felt so helpless in her life, and could only cling to Cara like she was the only other person in the whole world as her body was wracked with spasm after spasm, shriek after shriek, pain after pain. She heard snatches of words spilling into the nonexistent space between their bodies, and it took more time than she’d ever admit to realise that the words were her own (futile attempts, she imagined, at comfort); even then, she didn’t really know what it was she was trying to say.

Minutes, hours, days, eternities later, the howling stopped.

Cara jerked violently, and Kahlan was worn too far down from the strain of holding her so tightly for so long that she couldn’t sustain a solid grip as Cara lurched out of her arms with a strength that belied how long she’d been screaming.

With a rough-sounding thud, the Mord-Sith fell to the floor, and Kahlan could only watch from where she sat, dumb with horror and fear and a worry that threatened to devour her alive, as Cara pitched forwards and started heaving.

*

_She would be punished._

_It was the only cohesive thought she could form as she dug her pain-numbed hands into the dirt floor of the cell and gagged. This was weakness. She would be punished._

_The job was done. Around her, the scattered corpses of the rats that had caused her so much torment during their short lives lay strewn about like confetti, and the sight of their lifeless bodies sent Cara into another spasm of violent retching. She had killed them. It had almost killed her, but she had done it. They were dead. All of them. Every single rat, dead. And she’d done the deed with her bare hands._

_Beside her lay the agiel, hurriedly discarded as it had been when the emotions had risen acid-like in her throat. She waited a few moments until she’d caught her breath and her stomach had stopped churning, before leaning across and picking it up again. The pain surged through her, almost causing her to black out, but she ignored the overwhelming desire to let unconsciousness lay claim to her, and bit her lip hard enough to draw blood in a bid at keeping herself from launching into another cavalcade of unendingly tortured screams._

_She deserved this. She had brought it upon herself, and she deserved it._

_When her mistress returned to the cell, Dahlia in tow, nearly an hour later, Cara was still clutching the agiel to her chest. It was her penance. It was her punishment. She deserved it. She had killed the rats, all of them, and she deserved this. It was nothing to what the Mord-Sith would do to her when they realised how completely she’d let her strength dissolve into gut-wrenching weakness, and she would take it all. In fact, she would welcome it._

_“Cara,” said Mistress Nathair as she dropped Dahlia at Cara’s feet; there was something in the stoic woman’s voice that Cara had never heard in her, something she couldn’t place, though she knew she’d heard it somewhere before._

_“I killed them,” she whispered, almost in tears. “All of them.”_

_Her mistress’s eyes were not on the rats, however. Nor were they on the telltale evidence of Cara’s weakness, or the streaks of tears that still marked her face and painted all the evidence needed to convict her. None of those things seemed to register at all to Mistress Nathair; instead, she seemed locked on the agiel, the agiel that Cara still clung to as if its pain was all she knew._

_“You’ve done well, Cara,” she murmured, so surprisingly soft._

_Cara frowned. Did her mistress not see how weak she was?_

_“I’m sorry,” she whined, trying to explain. “I... I was...”_

_“Hush,” Mistress Nathair instructed her. “Quiet, Cara.”_

_Cara didn’t understand, but she did as she was told. Beside her, Dahlia was sobbing, loud and unashamed; Cara looked down, and almost burst into tears again as she saw the red rivers of abuse that wound themselves across the other girl’s skin._

_It was all her fault. Her weakness. She had ended the rats’ unfortunate lives, and she had made Dahlia suffer, and all because she was too weak, too helpless, too pathetic to withstand a few biting nibbles. She needed to be punished._

_Gently, but with real purpose, Mistress Nathair leaned in and plucked the agiel from Cara’s hands; not really knowing why, Cara found herself tightening her grip on the rod, unwilling to let it go. It was pain manifest, and it hurt to even think of holding it, much less to keep doing so... and yet she could not bring herself to relinquish possession of it to its rightful owner. The power, sick and crippling, surged through her like blood, like water, like air. Like life._

_She wanted the pain, she realised. She_ wanted _it, and that knowledge nearly made her double over again._

_Seeming to sense the tumultuous current of her thoughts, Mistress Nathair smiled. It wasn’t the frightening smile laced with cruelty, the ice-white smile of domination that she usually gave. It was the smile she’d given as a schoolteacher, the smile that had always reminded Cara of her mother. It was a smile that made Cara ache with warmth, and she closed her eyes with a tremulous sigh as her mistress feathered a kiss – a real kiss, one that felt like home – across her forehead._

_“I am so very proud of you, Cara.”_


	9. Chapter 9

Cara had been quiet for some time. After the brief spate of dry heaving that had (much to Kahlan’s relief) subsided quickly, she’d lapsed into a breathless silence. It had been some minutes, enough that Kahlan had stopped counting them, since the Mord-Sith had last spoken, and, despite herself, Kahlan was relieved. Silence, it seemed, was more promising than sound when it came to what Cara was going through, and the Mother Confessor was fast coming to realise that several hours of ominous quiet would definitely be preferable to even a few seconds of those awful cries.

Uncomfortable as the floor was, she’d made no effort to put Cara back on the bed, not wanting to disturb her any more than was absolutely necessary. In her current condition, of course, Cara seemed completely oblivious to the fact that she’d fallen from the sanctuary of the bed anyway, and, though Kahlan was sure that Zedd would chastise them both if he ever found out, what he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him. Cara certainly wasn’t offering any complaints about the floor, and Kahlan distinctly recalled her insisting on sleeping there the previous night and insisting again that morning on using the floor instead of the bed to ride out the spell. It would amuse her to no end, Kahlan was sure, if she awoke to find herself where she’d wanted to be instead of where Zedd had told her to be, and so Kahlan had propped her up against the nearest wall and let her rest there for the time being.

“I hope you’re happy,” she murmured, trying to occupy herself by plucking distractedly at the corner of her skirt where she’d torn it earlier. “Zedd will skin us both if he finds out about this.”

Cara didn’t reply (not that Kahlan had expected her to), but Kahlan amused herself by imagining a self-satisfied smirk on her companion’s face and a witty retort falling from her lips; she imagined – and it made her smile – the Mord-Sith rolling her eyes as she pointed out that Zedd didn’t know his own foolish head from a hole in the ground, and thus should never have been trusted to make demands in the first place.

“I know you don’t like him,” Kahlan continued, settling herself against the wall beside Cara and resting her head on the motionless Mord-Sith’s shoulder, simply because she knew there would be no protest. “But he cares about you.”

Cara said nothing.

“Oh, I know,” Kahlan pressed on, relentless now that she’d started. “You don’t believe it. I know you think he just wants to make you suffer, because he’s a wizard and you’re a Mord-Sith, but that’s not true. I swear it’s not. Zedd cares about you, just like Richard does. Just like I do. He’s being overprotective because he _cares_ , Cara, and it’s killing him that he’s caused you so much pain already.” She exhaled, a strained sigh, and fought the urge to feather her fingertips across the contours of Cara's face. “It’s killing us all. None of us wanted this, and I know you don’t believe that either, but I promise you, it’s the truth. You’re important to us, Cara. You matter.”

Almost imperceptibly, Cara shifted, and her breathing hitched.

“Don’t argue,” Kahlan told her, brushing a loose strand of hair from her face. “It’s true. We all care about you. And you _do_ matter. You matter to Richard, and you matter to me. Do you think I’d be here, watching you suffer like this, if you didn’t? Do you think your pain would hurt me so much if I didn’t care about you?” The words lodged like stale air in her throat. “I do care, Cara. Deeply. You’re my friend, whether you can admit to feeling the same way or not. I care about you, so much.”

Cara’s breath caught again, and suddenly it was laboured.

“Don’t,” Kahlan said; she’d intended it as a command (because Cara at least paid attention to those), but it came out as a plea instead. “Don’t, Cara. Not again. Please.”

“Have to,” Cara mumbled, and it sounded almost like a reply.

*

_“But I don’t want to.”_

_Dahlia whimpered, looking more like the helpless child she was slowly leaving behind than Cara had ever seen her. Even the day she’d first been brought into Cara’s cell, she hadn’t looked so small and vulnerable as she did now, and the tiny corner of Cara that still knew what compassion was wanted to run to her friend and hold her and let her cry out her fear and her pain and her heartbreak until she had no tears left._

_But she didn’t, because that was childish and it was weak. Her mistress was watching, standing silently in the doorway, and Cara would make her proud. They both would. Dahlia would do this, and then she would never have to feel the pain of Mord-Sith torture again._

_It had been a week since Cara had killed her father, and she hadn’t looked back. She hadn’t told Dahlia what had happened, nor had she shed so much as a single tear over it. Mistress Nathair had been surprisingly kind to her after it had happened, telling her over and over again how proud she was, how proud Cara had made her, how strong and brave and clever she was. The unexpected warmth that had flooded Cara’s soul when her mistress had shown that fleeting moment of affection after she’d slain the rats had returned a hundredfold amidst this new flurry of almost sentiment, and she’d proudly donned the leathers of a Mord-Sith. Her father hadn’t loved her, but her mistress did._

_And now, it was Dahlia’s turn. Killing was still an impenetrable barrier for her, but her mistresses had insisted that she needed to learn how to wield an agiel at the very least before she could progress._

_Dahlia had never feared the rats, and so had refused to slay them. Cara was the one who was afraid of them, and Dahlia had always held her hand through the biting and the clawing and everything else they’d done to her; Dahlia’s protection had given Cara the courage to survive the rats, and her dependence on Cara to protect her in turn (even if it was from a very different breed of fear) had given her the strength to kill them all. The rats had offered no threat to Dahlia, even before Cara had proven herself in slaying them all, just as the agiels were no longer a source of fear to Cara._

_It was the agiels that Dahlia feared. She had refused to come near Cara for a whole day after Cara started wearing the weapon her mistress had so generously awarded her for killing her father, and it was only after Cara had promised (albeit reluctantly) to leave the agiel on the other side of the room, far away, that Dahlia had returned to her arms and accepted her friendship and her embrace once more._

_Dahlia was terrified of the agiels, of the pain they caused, of even just the sight of them. Cara had slowly come to accept that pain as a source of strength, but Dahlia had not; she needed to be enlightened. Cara knew it, though it pained her to think of putting Dahlia through the screams and the suffering she herself had endured as she’d fought to hold the agiel without surrendering to unconsciousness. It had been, in its own way, more unbearable than the beatings and the breaking, but it had been worth it in the end. Cara was strong, and she was powerful, and it was all thanks to the beautiful, intoxicating agiel that she wore proudly at her hip._

_Dahlia needed to learn that. She needed to be brave, and to realise that the pain inflicted by the agiel was a tool as much as it was a torture. More than anything in the world, Cara wanted to share her newfound family with the one person in this dark world that mattered. Dahlia deserved to share what she felt, even if she did have to suffer a little to get there._

_“You have to,” she said, with understanding. “I know they frighten you, Dahlia, but you must overcome your fear. You must be strong. You must do it.”_

_“I don’t want to,” Dahlia whined. “I don’t want to hold it. I don’t want to touch it. I don’t even want to_ see _it. I hate them, Cara. I hate them!”_

_“I know,” Cara said with a sigh._

_“Then why—”_

_“I’ll hold it with you,” Cara told her, cutting her off before she could finish giving voice to questions that could not be answered._

_Dahlia looked up at her, eyes wet and wide and trusting; well aware of the fact that her mistress was watching, Cara gripped her friend’s hand tightly in one hand and brought up the other to wrap around her in a one-armed hug. She could feel every inch of Dahlia trembling, even through the stiff fabric of her leather and the thin material of the other girl’s tattered dress, but she held on tight, smiling silently as Dahlia clung to her as though she were the only person in the world._

_“You promise?” Dahlia sniffled hopefully._

_“I promise,” Cara confirmed softly, pulling back to meet her eye, even as the hand that wasn’t still holding Dahlia’s slowly lowered to draw her agiel from its holster. “I’ll hold your hand, and I’ll hold the agiel the whole time you’re touching it. I’ll let it hurt me, so it doesn’t hurt you.”_

_It was a lie, but Dahlia didn’t need to know that. All she needed to do was take the agiel, to hold it, to feel its embrace. All she needed to do was prove that she could withstand its pain, that she would one day be able to use it properly, that she had potential enough for her mistresses to welcome her, as they had welcomed Cara, and stop torturing her. Cara was protecting her, she told herself. The pain she would suffer as the penalty of wielding the agiel would be nothing compared to the pain she was being spared in learning to do so._

_Cara knew this well enough herself; it had been a week since she was last beaten, a week since she had been tortured or wounded or suffered anything at all, a week since she had taken her leathers and been welcomed by the Mord-Sith as a member of their family. She knew it was important that Dahlia let herself be welcomed too, knew that it was the only way to make sure Dahlia wouldn’t suffer any more. If she could only find enough strength to hold the agiel, to use it, to do what her mistresses asked of her (so little, really, for such reward)... the pain and the suffering and the torture would end forever. And Cara, because it was her duty and because she loved her, would help._

_Still trembling, Dahlia raised one hand towards the agiel. Cara nodded her approval, and felt her fingers tighten over her friend’s. She couldn’t protect her from the initial pain, and she was already bracing for the scream and the terror and the agony (and, worse than any of those things, the betrayal) that she knew would bleed from Dahlia as she held the agiel for the first time, as she suffered the full extent of its wrath like a newborn choking on its first lungful of air... but, though she could do nothing about that, she could hold her hand, as she’d promised, and she could keep her strong. She would hold her hand tightly enough that Dahlia would know just how much she loved her._

_Just as she’d expected, the instant Dahlia’s fingers grazed the handle of the agiel (barely even touching it at all), she screamed. Cara remembered her own screams as she’d come to grips with the agony of holding the agiel (so different and yet so similar to being struck by one), and she shifted her own fingers over the weapon, wrapping them around Dahlia’s and holding the other girl’s hand over the thrumming weapon. Dahlia’s eyes widened as Cara held her hand in place, betrayal evident in her eyes, and Cara felt her heart pulsing with a pain that was so much worse than anything the agiel could ever give; the very last thing she wanted, in all the world, was to see Dahlia looking at her like that... to be the cause of her suffering. No pain could compare with the look in her eyes._

_It needed to happen this way, though. Dahlia needed to learn to withstand the pain of the agiels, to overcome her fear of them, and Cara knew that the only way of doing that was to keep holding it (through the screams and the spasms and the searing agony and the countless other things she couldn’t even remember any more) until it didn’t feel so bad. She knew it, because she’d done it herself. She had been alone when she’d done it, with nobody to hold her hand or hear her screams or endure the pain by her side, and she had survived. Dahlia would survive too, but she would do so with Cara’s help. Cara would die before she would release Dahlia’s hands, and she willed the other girl to see the truth of it in her eyes._

_“Cara...” Dahlia choked when she’d stopped screaming, and Cara gently squeezed the hand that wasn’t holding the agiel, the one she was using to offer comfort, the one she’d squeezed so many times before, but never quite like this. “Cara, it hurts... please... it hurts...”_

_“I know,” Cara told her._

_She was close to tears herself, but she knew her mistress was watching and so she held them at bay, instead channelling all her sorrow and pain into holding Dahlia’s hand ever more tightly and praying that with those heartfelt touches would flow some of her strength as well._

_Dahlia let out another soul-piercing scream, even as Cara continued to hold her fingers forcefully in place over the agiel, even as it ripped and tore at her own heart. It had to be this way, she reminded herself. It was for Dahlia’s own good. It was her salvation._

_“Why are you doing this?” Dahlia choked._

_“I’m doing it for you!” Cara promised, holding Dahlia’s tear-filled gaze and willing her with everything she had to understand. “It’ll stop, I promise. If you can do this, they won’t hurt you again. You’ll be one of them. We both will. Both of us, Dahlia. They’ll welcome you, just like they did for me. I promise you, Dahlia—”_

_“I don’t want to be one of them!”_

_The words struck like a blow, and Cara recoiled. Dahlia didn’t mean it, she assured herself; it was the pain talking. She couldn’t blame her friend for that, for lashing out in rebellion against the people who had caused her pain, not when she didn’t truly understand it yet. Hadn’t her mistress always told her that she was the stronger of the two?_

_Dahlia just didn’t realise yet, how the pain would make her strong, how it would make her powerful and brave and wonderful, how important it was. She was too afraid of the agiel to embrace how different the pain was when it was held than when it was used against her. She was too terrified to realise how calming, how soothing – how_ beautiful _– it could be._

_“Dahlia...” Cara said, struck by a sudden idea. “Dahlia, listen to me. I know you’re afraid, but you don’t need to be. If you can do this, you can do anything.”_

_Dahlia was sobbing again. “I don’t want to!” she repeated, and Cara pressed down harder on her hand. “I just want to go home. Cara, I just want to go home!”_

_“No,” Cara insisted, and her voice was far more rough-edged than it should have been. “Dahlia, I need you here. With me. We’re friends, we can be family. Dahlia, I know it hurts, but you have to do this.”_

_Once again, Dahlia tried to struggle, to break away from the agiel, but Cara held her in place with ferocity, fighting to ignore Dahlia’s whimpering protests. Fighting to ignore the plaintive little girl in the back of her mind that told her this wasn’t right, that she shouldn’t be doing this, that she was causing pain to the one person in all the world she was sworn to protect from it. She had to ignore that voice, because, if she listened to it, even for a moment, it would win... and then it would destroy them both._

_“Stop it!” Dahlia howled._

_“I can’t,” Cara told her, forceful. “You need to understand, Dahlia. You have to realise, this is the only way to stop it hurting. I know you’re scared of them, I know you are. I know you want them to stop hurting you... but this is the only way. I promise you, I’m not trying to hurt you. I’d do anything not to hurt you, you know that. I’m just trying to protect you, Dahlia, like I promised to. I’m just trying to make you strong, like me.”_

_Her path chosen, she drew in a breath, bracing herself for what she needed to do._

_“Dahlia,” she repeated, all urgency and intensity. “I want you to use it on me."_

*

“What!?”

Kahlan knew that her outburst would go unheard, but she simply couldn’t suppress it. She’d heard Cara’s mumbled insistence that Dahlia use the agiel on her, and had pieced together exactly what was going on from the fragmented snatches of monologue that had spilled brokenly from the Mord-Sith’s lips in the minutes since she’d started becoming restless again. The significance of it – of Cara asking to be struck by an agiel – left Kahlan cold and shaking; had it really been so easy for the Mord-Sith to turn an innocent nine-year-old girl into an agiel-wielding masochist?

“It’s all right,” Cara said again, and Kahlan knew better than to expect that she was explaining it to her; far more likely, she was responding to exactly the same outburst as it fell from Dahlia’s lips. “I want you to see, it doesn’t hurt so bad. You have to see. I promise.”

The change in Cara since she’d been choked by her own screams, barely a few minutes earlier, was terrifying; Kahlan knew there had probably been a substantial lapse in time between then and now, and that the spell had probably skipped the parts of the other Cara’s life that weren’t affected by Dahlia’s presence, but that didn’t stop her being shaken by the sheer depth of change in the woman before her. Was this really the same Cara who had screamed herself hoarse just minutes ago? The same Cara she’d heard mumbling about how the lash of an agiel felt like dying?

“Dahlia,” Cara started up again, voice cracking as she shifted forwards.

Swiftly, Kahlan leaned over, steadying her before she could lose her balance, and was surprised to feel the almost-tender brush of lips against her cheek.

“You’re my friend,” Cara whispered, and Kahlan shuddered. “I care about you, so much. You have to believe me, Dahlia. All I want to do is protect you, just like I promised.”

Kahlan couldn’t hide the sorrowful sigh that escaped her at that. For all her newfound love of pain, the little girl that Cara had once been was still in there somewhere. The child who knew what friendship was and understood how it felt to care about someone, though she’d been beaten and broken and lost to the thrall of agiel-induced suffering, was still there. She was still alive, and she still cared enough about Dahlia to want to protect her.

That was what Cara had wanted to find, and it simultaneously warmed Kahlan’s heart and froze her soul to know that she was getting it. She was glad that Cara was seeing the things she’d missed out on thanks to Zedd’s meddling, but it crushed her to know that, for all the tragic beauty in these memories, she hadn’t truly experienced them. She could remember them as vividly as the spell would allow, but it wouldn’t change the fact that they weren’t real. Dahlia wasn’t real, and neither was the little girl in Cara who longed to protect her friend from harm.

Cara – the Cara she knew, _her_ Cara – had been broken alone. Her heart had been stripped from her just as completely as she had been stripped from her family, and Kahlan ached all over to know that all the false memories in all the universe could never give Cara the truth of having actually lived through these things, or of knowing what it was to be loved and to love in kind.

The friendship Cara was clinging to, the affection and the love that had her wanting to take the lash of an agiel so that Dahlia might feel less afraid... it wasn’t real, and it never would be. As real as her feelings for Dahlia seemed, as real as Kahlan was sure they felt to Cara, it was all just an illusion. It was, all of it, the phantom of an existence that had been wiped from reality, and there was nothing Cara could do (no spell-induced recollection she could put herself through, no artificial memories she could steal) that would ever change the fact.

Kahlan could only pray that it would be worth it.

*

_“Do it,” Cara said, shaping the steel of her voice into a plea._

_Still, Dahlia hesitated, and Cara brought up her hand (the one still holding Dahlia’s over the agiel) and pointed it towards herself. She held Dahlia’s gaze, forced her friend to see the truth of what she was saying, to see that she wasn’t afraid, that she wanted nothing more than for Dahlia to be unafraid too. If Dahlia refused to believe her words, she would have to believe her eyes. Eyes did not lie, even eyes as hardened as Cara’s had been by the murder of her gutless father._

_“I’m sorry,” Dahlia whispered, though it was unnecessary, and finally drove the agiel into Cara’s chest. “I’m sorry, Cara. I’m sorry, I’m sorry...”_

_“Don’t be,” Cara told her, smiling through the pulse of pain as it struck her. “Don’t apologise. Don’t feel like you’re harming me, or making me suffer. You’re not.”_

_Though it did still hurt, far worse than she would have expected after growing so used to the feel of the agiel in her hand, she refused to let any trace of pain show through on her face. She was strong, powerful beyond the strike of the agiel, and she would make sure Dahlia saw that. It was the only way._

_“Look at me,” she urged her still-shaking friend. “Look at me, Dahlia. See how it doesn’t hurt me now. See how I’m not scared of it.”_

_Wordlessly, Dahlia nodded. Cara felt her smile widen, even as the pain increased with every moment the agiel was pressed against her. She wanted it gone now, but she knew that the least display of discomfort would send Dahlia running, and so she held herself bravely in place. The slightest movement, and she knew that Dahlia would see through her façade, through the false courage and the pretence of painlessness; she would see through it all, and Cara would lose her completely. She would not allow that to happen._

_The truth was, being able to hold an agiel and being able to withstand a strike from one were still two different things; feeling the spider-web ripples of blood-lined pain tearing through her chest where the agiel still touched her, it was all Cara could do to remain conscious, much less keep smiling, but she knew that she had to._

_Dahlia couldn’t know that she was lying; she couldn’t know that, for all of Cara’s big words and bigger smile, the agiels still hurt, pain beyond pain, hurt beyond imagining. She couldn’t know that wielding the weapon and withstanding a blow from it were no more the same than being able to swim and being able to breathe underwater. She had to believe that Cara was invulnerable, that she felt no pain. She had to believe that she would be too, if only she could endure this._

_All Dahlia needed to know was that holding the agiel would make her powerful, that it would cure her of her fears. All she needed to know was that Cara was brave enough to endure its touch, to draw it in and welcome it, and that she too would be made strong and powerful if only she could find the courage to do this now. That was all she needed to do, and Cara just needed to hold on a moment more... a moment..._

_“You’re so brave,” Dahlia murmured at last, finally tearing the agiel away from Cara’s skin._

_Cara could feel the still-lingering burn of it beneath her leather, could feel her lungs screaming for air, but forced herself to keep from panting. Forced herself, above all else, to keep smiling._

_“You are, too,” she whispered, and gave Dahlia a shaky hug._

_From where she stood, Mistress Nathair smiled her approval._

*

Kahlan had no recollection of Cara’s latest lapse into silence. Nor did she have any recollection of her own body’s insistence that it needed to shut down and catch its breath, even for just a few minutes, while it had the opportunity. All she was aware of was the fact that, in one moment, she was seated uncomfortably on the floor beside Cara, and, seemingly in the very next, she was waking groggily with her head in the oblivious Mord-Sith’s lap.

“Cara...?” she murmured reflexively, jolting upright as though burned by the cool leather that had stuck to her skin.

She had fallen asleep. She, Kahlan, who had been commissioned to take care of Cara while she was under the effect of the spell, who had promised to look after her, to protect her, to be there for her... in barely a couple of hours, she had already been so exhausted by what she’d seen that she had fallen asleep. It was pitiful.

Thankfully, occupied as she was, Cara didn’t remark on the fact. Nor, much to Kahlan’s relief, did she issue any complaints about the fact that the great Mother Confessor had been weak enough to fall asleep on top of her. Given the choice, Kahlan supposed she would have gladly taken the overblown outrage if it meant she would have gotten a tangible reply... though, at the same time, she couldn’t deny being somewhat grateful for the lack of an agiel jabbed between her breasts.

Her brief lapse didn’t seem to have caused any harm, though, and Cara certainly didn’t seem any the worse for having been left alone with her memories for a handful of minutes (at least, Kahlan hoped it was no more than that), but she felt guilty nonetheless. She’d had no idea she was that exhausted; the experience had, she was sure, barely even begun yet, and already she was overwhelmed to the point of falling asleep against her own will.

Was her concern for the Mord-Sith really so great that it had worn her out so completely in such a short period? If so, it didn’t bode well for the remainder of the spell’s duration (which, if Zedd’s vague predictions were anything to go by, was rather substantial). And, more worryingly even than that, it didn’t bode well at all for her ability to keep her promise of being there and making sure that Cara didn’t hurt herself; if she couldn’t even keep her own eyes open, what chance did she have of keeping Cara from self-inflicted injury?

“Are you all right?” she asked Cara, speaking as much to herself as she checked her companion’s condition as she was to the unresponsive Mord-Sith. “Anything damaged?”

Cara stirred ever so slightly as Kahlan shifted position next to her, but otherwise remained locked up in her private universe. Kahlan heaved a heavy sigh, climbing to her feet and making her way on surprisingly unsteady feet to the washbasin. Though she couldn’t have been asleep for more than a quarter of an hour, if even that long, she was infuriatingly groggy, and the cold impact of water as she splashed her face was precisely the shock she needed to regain her composure.

Leaving the Mord-Sith to sit by herself for the time being, Kahlan instead returned to the bed, settling on the edge of it just across from where Cara rested on the floor, and gazing down at her. Cara’s eyes were wide open, as they had been almost since the spell had first taken effect (notwithstanding the occasional moments where they’d slipped closed in pain or other discomfort, or when Kahlan suspected she’d been driven into in-spell unconsciousness), and she stared blindly ahead as though all her experiences were playing out like a puppet-show on the cracked surface of the far wall. It was quite an eerie thing to watch, the possessed and sightless Mord-Sith, and all the more so because Kahlan knew that it was also a mark of just how helpless Cara truly was just then.

She shouldn’t have let herself fall asleep, she thought angrily. It didn’t matter how exhausting her emotions were, or how drained her body was from the effort of holding Cara in her arms as she’d screamed or reacted to whatever other tortures her mind had been putting her through. None of that mattered. The only thing that did was the fact that Cara was truly vulnerable and Kahlan had let her down.

Cara couldn’t look after herself; she couldn’t do anything. She couldn’t, Kahlan realised with a jolt of guilt-ridden pain, keep herself alive. If she began heaving again, or if (spirits forbid) she actually vomited next time, she wouldn’t be able to keep herself from choking. If she went into spasms and tried to swallow her tongue, or bit down hard enough to damage it, there was nothing she could do to keep it from happening. Left alone, she could easily kill herself without meaning to. Nothing stood between Cara and her own self-annihilation, except Kahlan.

“It won’t happen again,” she said, and she wasn’t sure which of the two of them she was telling.

Cara, if she’d been in any position to say anything, would probably have laughed at her for being so paranoid. After all, it wasn’t as though any real harm had been done yet, and (she was sure) the words ‘ _I am Mord-Sith_ ’ would no doubt escape the cocky blonde’s lips more times than either of them could count if Kahlan had been able to raise the issue with her, but knowing that didn’t help at all. In fact, it made all the more painful the realisation that she _wasn’t_ laughing or insisting that she was perfectly capable of looking after herself... or doing anything at all. She was a ghost.

And besides, Kahlan knew that her promises were hollow.

Zedd had said the spell could last days. Kahlan had, of course, gone days without sleep before, even days under great physical and mental strain... but this was different. This was exhausting in a way she hadn’t been prepared for, a way that was completely alien to her. She hadn’t even managed to survive these first few desperate hours without surrendering to the bone-deep exhaustion that only came with watching the incurable suffering of a loved one. It would be more than mere delusion to believe she could survive days of the same; it would be foolish, and more than a little dangerous. If she could not accept her own shortcomings, Cara would be left truly unguarded, and Kahlan would not forgive herself for that. Though she didn’t want to leave Cara’s side, not even for a moment, she knew there would come a time, and probably more than one, where it would be necessary.

Where she sat, Cara sighed, and it took every ounce of strength Kahlan had to keep from slipping down to the floor and holding her until time stopped for them both.

She had no idea where the impulse came from; the sigh wasn’t one of pain or sorrow or any of the other tumultuous sensations that had flooded Cara’s being almost from the moment the spell had been cast. It was a soft, unguarded, barely-perceptible little sigh that marked nothing more than a shift in position and a slight elevation in breathing, but it touched Kahlan on a level that made her blink back tears and clench her fists at her side under the sheer weight of unexpected emotion.

Clearly, she was more exhausted than she’d thought.

*

_The day Dahlia earned her leathers, Cara stood beside her._

_Just as Cara had promised, Dahlia had slowly but surely grown used to the pain of the agiel as she held it, and seemed almost (but only almost) comfortable with the weight of the weapon in her hand as she huddled before the pitiful figure of her father. Cara recalled vividly her own experience, the look on her cowardly father’s face as he’d refused to deny the accusations laid before him and the thrill of exhilaration that had coursed through her as she’d driven the agiel through him, making him pay for everything he’d done. She remembered it as though it were happening right in front of her again, and a cold smile touched her features as she drank in the power she’d felt, amplified in knowing that Dahlia would be feeling it too._

_“Do it,” she said, squeezing Dahlia’s hand tightly. “Do it, Dahlia. He deserves it.”_

_Dahlia looked up at her, eyes wide and frightened; ever the more innocent of the two, she still didn’t want to believe what Cara knew to be the truth. She didn’t want to believe that the man who had been so kind to her would ultimately turn out to be such a monster, so capable of such cruelty. Cara supposed she could understand that; she hadn’t wanted to believe it either. But not wanting to believe it didn’t make it any less true, and Cara had learned that as well. Dahlia needed to learn it too._

_“I’m here,” she murmured, leaning in to press her lips against her friend’s ear, sweet and familiar. “I know how you feel, Dahlia. I had to do it too. But then it’ll all be over, and you’ll be so powerful.”_

_“I don’t want to,” Dahlia whined. “Don’t make me do it, Cara. Please don’t make me.”_

_Cara turned her attention to the man who cowered like a rat before his daughter. She’d met him before, Dahlia’s father, once or twice when she and Dahlia had played together after school. He had been kind to her, always having a smile and a cold drink ready for when the girls exhausted themselves in their search for night wisps and other such exotic creatures. He had been a good man, or so she’d thought... but then, hadn’t Cara’s own father also been a good man? And had that ‘goodness’ been enough to stop him turning and betraying his own daughter for the sake of a few worthless coins?_

_No, it had not._

_The rage surged up within her, carefully honed, and she couldn’t keep herself from lashing out with the agiel that was as much a part of her as her own heartbeat by now._

_“Cara, don’t!”_

_Eyes blazing with a depth of fury that was only half-directed at the man who was actually in front of her, Cara shook her head. Tight, violent._

_“You have to understand, Dahlia,” she said, and almost didn’t recognise the hate-filled voice as her own. She truly had come so far, and all thanks to her new sisters. “What he did to you. He needs to be punished. He needs to pay for it.”_

_Somewhere in the quiet, walled-off corner of her mind, Cara knew that wasn’t true. Her own father had sold her to the Mord-Sith, that much she knew; he had got what he deserved at his daughter’s own hand... but it was different for Dahlia. Dahlia hadn’t been sold, she’d been taken for Cara. Wasn’t that what her mistress had told her on the day when she’d brought Dahlia to be Cara’s companion? It was no more Dahlia’s father’s fault she was here than it was her own. It was all Cara’s fault. All of it, her fault._

_But she couldn’t ever let Dahlia know that. She wouldn’t allow herself to be brought to her knees by the weakness of guilt. Surely, if Dahlia’s father had truly cared for his daughter, he would have stopped it. He was a man, and the Mord-Sith were women; it was a man’s duty to be stronger than women, and it was a father’s duty to stand up and defend his family from anyone who would dare tear it apart. By not protecting Dahlia when the Mord-Sith had taken her, he had proven himself as deserving of this fate as Cara’s own father had been of his._

_It didn’t matter, the Mord-Sith in Cara insisted, that it was ultimately her fault. It didn’t matter that she was the reason Dahlia had been taken. It definitely didn’t matter how much of it was true and how much of it was a fabrication for the sake of her mistress’s controlling intentions. It didn’t matter at all that Cara believed everything she was told because she was a child who didn’t understand manipulation, whether it was the way of things or not. All that mattered was that Dahlia’s father had failed to protect her when she’d needed him to. And, for that, he deserved to die._

_“Dahlia,” she said, turning to her friend, eyes blazing and hands trembling with fury. “He is the reason you’re here. He didn’t love you enough to stop them taking you. He didn’t love you enough to protect you.” She felt tears pricking behind her eyes, but willed them back. “_ I do _.”_

_Blinking back tears of her own, Dahlia searched Cara’s face. Cara felt the intensity flood like heat through her, felt the truth of her own words tearing her apart, even as she knew that Dahlia would believe it. They had both been through the fires of the Underworld – and worse – at the hands of the Mord-Sith, and Dahlia had to know by now that Cara would have done anything in all the world to protect her from those things. They cared for each other, cared deeply, on a level that no others (and certainly not their cowardly, pathetic fathers) could possibly comprehend. Dahlia had to understand that, had to feel the bond that Cara felt flowing through her veins, thicker even than her own blood._

*

“You have to do it,” Cara murmured desperately, and Kahlan found herself clenching and unclenching her fists where they rested in her lap.

“It’s all right,” she said, a little absently. “Everything’s all right.”

“You _must_ ,” Cara insisted, sounding a little more urgent each time she reiterated the point. “He needs to die for what he did to you. He needs to suffer for letting you be taken, for letting you down. You are so important, Dahlia, so beautiful... and he let you go as if you meant nothing to him at all!”

The raw passion in Cara’s voice left her trembling from head to toe, and Kahlan slipped down from the bed (despite having told herself that she wouldn’t) and draped an arm across her shoulders in the vain hope that it would steady her a little. She had never heard such depthless passion falling from Cara’s lips before; she’d heard the same level of conviction a few times, and even the same plateau of rawness, but never the passion. Never the trembling emotion, never the rough-edged purity of innocent faith... and never, most of all... never such real, pure love.

“If you don’t do it,” Cara went on, voice shaky, “I will. I’ll kill him with my bare hands for what he did, and know that he deserves much worse. I will do it if you don’t, Dahlia, and don’t think I won’t.” Her jaw clenched, going white. “I’d never fail you as he did, Dahlia. I’d never let you be taken from me. I would sooner die. He wouldn’t... and so he will.”

It was a brutal contradiction, and one that caused Kahlan’s stomach to churn. The innocence of friendship, of being willing to do anything for someone who meant all the world in a single moment... and the ruthless violence of what Cara, the Mord-Sith, was threatening. This wasn’t a schoolyard bully, and it wasn’t a fight for honour or dignity or childish pride. It was a nine-year-old girl threatening to slaughter another’s father in cold blood for a fabricated slight. Knowing what she did about how the Mord-Sith tortured both the girls and their families into believing exactly what they wanted, Kahlan felt her blood run cold to see it played out in front of her through Cara’s spell-whitened eyes.

“He doesn’t love you, Dahlia,” Cara went on. “If he did, he wouldn’t have let this happen to you.” She shifted just slightly, the positioning of it bringing her head to rest in the crook of Kahlan’s neck, and Kahlan rocked her gently. “He’s nothing, Dahlia. He’s less than nothing. He’s a weak, pathetic coward. He didn’t protect you. He didn’t take care of you or hold your hand or teach you how to withstand the pain of the agiel. _I_ did those things. _Me_ , Dahlia! He can’t understand what you’ve been through, what’s been done to you here. He can’t understand the suffering you’ve endured. I can. Dahlia...”

She trailed off roughly, and the heaving of her chest rocked both their bodies. Kahlan gently eased up her hold, leaning back just far enough to make sure Cara could suck in enough air to keep herself from passing out; she looked as though the effort of speaking was greater even than the effort of enduring the countless beatings Kahlan had watched her suffer before, and the Mother Confessor’s heart simultaneously ached for the little girl who felt so much, and broke for the one who had been so cruelly manipulated into believing those feelings to be real.

“...he can’t love you like I do.”

The words sent a chill shivering down Kahlan’s spine, though she couldn’t say why. Cara, meanwhile, jerked and twitched, the emotions overwhelming her once again, and her face burying itself ever more deeply into Kahlan’s neck.

For a long time after that, Cara said nothing. In her mind’s eye, Kahlan saw the scene, and she tightened her grip on Cara as though that would somehow make her reconsider what she was pushing her friend to do. She honestly didn’t know what made her heart ache more – the fact that Cara was doing this to someone she cared about so genuinely and so deeply, or the fact that she was doing it _because_ she cared so genuinely and so deeply. This wasn’t an act of power or domination like Kahlan had always been raised to believe were all the Mord-Sith were capable of; the raw passion in Cara, passion that Kahlan knew would haunt her for days, told a different story.

This, the brutality of talking a little girl into ruthlessly slaughtering her own father... in Cara’s tainted mind, it truly was a gesture of love.

After what seemed like a lifetime, Cara smiled. It was a smile laced with more different emotions than Kahlan could count, but overlaid with a depth of love – real, pure love – the likes of which she’d never seen in Cara before.

The deed, Kahlan knew, was done, and knowledge of the fact sent another lance of ice-drenched horror arcing through her like lightning.

“Dahlia,” Cara murmured against Kahlan’s neck, lit up from within. “We really are family now.”


	10. Chapter 10

_Little girls grew up quickly in Mord-Sith temples. Some, like Cara, grew up quicker than most. Others, like Dahlia, clung to the fractured vestiges of childhood for as long as possible before finally relinquishing their tattered remains and surrendering to the inevitability of adulthood._

_By the time her body reached maturity, Cara was every inch a true Mord-Sith. She wore her pride like a badge, straight and tall, and never thought back on those simpler times where she’d believed every word she’d been told, or when she’d had faith in compassion or other such weak sentiments. She never spared a thought for the days where the lash of an agiel would cause her to cry like a newborn lamenting its entry into the world, or for the nights where the rats would keep her awake. Those were foolish things, and she had been foolish too, to let herself be so affected by them. She knew better than that now, and she embraced that knowledge like the priceless gift it was._

_Dahlia was exactly the opposite. She still smiled, even though she knew it would get her beaten, even though she knew it was weakness, even though Cara had told her (time and time again) not to. She still talked about things like night wisps as though she would ever be able to see one, still let her mind wander when it should have been focused, still asked Cara (on those quiet nights when their sisters were asleep and she knew she wouldn’t be overheard) if, only just for a few moments, she could hold her hand and let it strengthen her like it had when they were little girls._

_If she was able to remember what true affection felt like, Cara might have found that lingering juvenility endearing. As it was, she found it annoying and difficult, but utterly impossible to suppress._

_It didn’t help either that, however she felt about it, she always found herself indulging it. She knew that she shouldn’t, and, in that, perhaps she was as much at fault as Dahlia was... but, though she knew it was foolish, she simply couldn’t deny the other girl anything. All Dahlia needed to do was look at her, eyes wide and hopeful and so aggravatingly childlike, and Cara would crumble to dust._

_Cara had long ago discarded her weaknesses, but Dahlia was one that she simply could not shed. She wanted to, she knew that Dahlia’s lingering innocence was a burden that needed to be lifted from them both before it crushed them, but she simply couldn’t do it. Dahlia had some sort of indefinable power over her, however fervently Cara would deny it, and it was absolute._

_It was also (though Cara tried not to dwell on how certainly she knew this to be true) going to get them both into trouble._

_Dahlia was prone to making silly mistakes. Cara knew that, and often covered over her shortcomings, assuring their more judgmental sisters that it wouldn’t happen again, protecting Dahlia (as she’d promised from the moment they’d been thrust together) from the suffering she had brought upon herself. For the most part, it worked; Cara effectively adopted herself as unofficial mistress to Dahlia, responsible for disciplining her, and their sisters and superiors generally accepted this arrangement on the strength of Cara’s remarkable progress._

_But some mistakes could not be covered over._

_One afternoon, Dahlia approached Cara with a broad smile on her face; Cara knew the smile well, it was the kind that told her, beyond all doubt, that Dahlia had done something (or, perhaps worse, was considering doing something) highly inappropriate and utterly unbecoming of a Mord-Sith. Something foolish or sentimental or otherwise absurd, and Cara had already opened her mouth to gently chastise her friend (and remind her for what felt like the millionth time that she would have to learn to put her childish flights of fancy aside someday soon) when Dahlia’s smile widened and she held out a single gloved hand._

_Sitting in the middle of her palm, bright green against the blood-coloured leather was a fresh apple._

_“What’s that?” Cara demanded suspiciously, as if it wasn’t obvious._

_Dahlia smiled, face bright with the wide-eyed little girl look that rendered Cara more helpless than all the agiels in all of D’Hara._

_“For you,” she beamed, sounding so very proud of herself, so very_ happy _; if there was ever a Mord-Sith still capable of joy after her breaking, Cara supposed, it would be Dahlia. “I know you’ve missed the last two days’ worth of meals. I thought you might need some sustenance, and I didn’t want to distract you from your duties, so I took it—”_

_“You took it?” Cara echoed, voice lowering dangerously._

_Dahlia shrugged, oblivious (as she always was) to the danger in what she’d done. “Nobody saw me, Cara.”_

_Cara gripped her agiel where it sat holstered at her hip, willing the sting of it to keep her from lashing out and breaking Dahlia’s jaw._

_“And when they notice that it’s missing?” she demanded, trying very hard to keep her temper at bay. “You know we keep careful stock of every single item in the temple. You know we know exactly where everything is. You know this, Dahlia, because it was beaten into both our heads when we were children. Years ago, we learned this. I refuse to believe you are so foolish as to have—”_

_“Cara...”_

_“No!” Cara barked, and it was almost a command. “If they find out you took this, they will beat you for a week.” She felt her voice crack, almost imperceptibly, and prayed Dahlia would not hear it. “They will_ tear you apart _, Dahlia.”_

_“You have to eat something!”_

_“My diet is not your concern,” Cara snapped, struggling to sustain the authority in her voice. “You cannot take the things you want anymore, Dahlia. You know this. You’re not a child any longer. You are not a foolish little girl who doesn’t understand the way things are here. You are a Mord-Sith, Dahlia!”_

_“I’m your friend,” Dahlia murmured, moving in close and whispering the words lest they be overheard. “I am yours.”_

_Despite her best efforts, Cara couldn’t stop herself from softening just a little at that, and she stepped back with a frustrated sigh._

_“Fine,” she said, as she’d known she would. “But you must stop these dalliances. You must stop believing it’s acceptable to behave as though you were still a child. I cannot help you if you continue to do things like this. And, when they find out that you took an apple, I will not be able to protect you. You must know this, Dahlia. You must understand what they’ll do to you when they find out. I cannot protect you from—”_

_“Sometimes, Cara,” Dahlia interrupted, looking sullen, “it is_ you _who needs protecting. You are not the only one of us who is strong.”_

_“You are an idiot if you believe that.”_

_“And you are an idiot if you do not.”_

_Cara growled, the impudence almost more than her Mord-Sith pride could stand. Had it been any of their other sisters daring to challenge her in such a way, she would have struck her with the agiel and held it to her chest until her heart stopped beating and she needed the breath of life. As it was, of course, Cara could no more bring herself to strike Dahlia now than she ever could before._

_And so, because she couldn’t simply do nothing, as much as her heart wanted to, she angrily plucked the apple from Dahlia’s still-extended hand, turned sharply on her heel, and departed their chambers._

_“You need to grow up, Dahlia,” she barked over her shoulder, though she didn’t bother looking back. “And swiftly.”_

*

Cara was grumbling to herself. Moody curses and veiled threats tumbled from her lips, too fast to catch, and it was all Kahlan could do to keep from laughing at the petulance of it.

There was something almost unnaturally endearing about Cara when she was sulking, even when it was aimed at Kahlan herself (but especially when it was aimed at Richard); it was rare, of course, and Kahlan seldom got the opportunity to appreciate it, so she took this quiet moment of unguarded juvenility as a veiled blessing and drank it in.

Cara was an exceptionally private person, and didn’t like to stay still when she was upset; more often than she could count, Kahlan had watched her stalk off into the forest to nurse her wounded pride alone, and the Mother Confessor (though she’d wanted to join her companion) had only been able to chuckle and shake her head from a safe distance. It was refreshing, if a little voyeuristic, to be able to see that side of the Mord-Sith first-hand now.

“Immature,” Cara grumbled, sounding so much more like a child than she had when she’d been re-experiencing her life as one. “Foolish. It’s a miracle the girl is able to navigate her way out of bed in the morning.”

Kahlan smiled warmly, almost laughing, and lightly nudged Cara’s shoulder with her own.

“She’s more like you than you’d think,” she informed her unresponsive companion. “I bet she’s a stubborn idiot, too.”

“Stubborn idiot,” Cara growled, and Kahlan did burst out laughing at that. “Self-righteous, arrogant, juvenile little...”

“Now, Cara,” Kahlan chided, still chuckling. “Play nice.”

That seemed to do the trick, though Kahlan knew it was just another convenient coincidence, as Cara lapsed into a brief silence.

As they sat there, Kahlan dropped her head down to rest atop Cara’s, thinking about how much of a privilege it was to see her like this. She hadn’t expected anything to make her feel grateful for the part she was forced to play in this excruciating puppet-show, and certainly nothing so trite or trivial as a moment of unselfconscious ranting, but she was (and she couldn’t even deny it) grateful for this. It was less than nothing, really, and yet it was pure Cara.

Suddenly, as though uncomfortable with the idea that Kahlan might actually be enjoying something, Cara bolted upright; her eyes, still white and blind from the spell’s hold on her, were wider even than they usually were, and Kahlan instantly felt her pulse increase. 

“Cara?”

“Mistress!” Cara replied curtly, and her voice was awash with carefully-shrouded anxiety.

Kahlan’s heart sank; she didn’t know what was going on, but she could tell by the look on Cara’s face that it would end badly, and cursed herself for having let herself relax even for a moment. She should have known better, should have anticipated that there was no such thing as a perfectly innocuous moment in a Mord-Sith temple. No sliver of humanity went without reprimand, and Kahlan felt herself tense in preparation for whatever punishment was about to befall Cara, all the while hating the fact that neither of them had been allowed even just a moment without repercussion.

“It’s mine,” Cara went on, voice a bit thicker than it had been but oozing confidence now, and Kahlan winced. “I took it.”

It didn’t take a genius of Zedd’s wizardly intellect to know what she was talking about, especially in light of the conversation that had preceded the impromptu interruption in the first place. She’d taken the apple from Dahlia, Kahlan could tell, and was claiming it as her own.

Kahlan’s chest tightened at the implications of what Cara was doing; she’d heard Cara say that she couldn’t protect Dahlia from the consequences of her foolishness, but it seemed as though that was exactly what she was trying to do anyway. Kahlan was awestruck by Cara’s willingness to take the fall for her friend despite being so annoyed with her, and, at the same time, deeply fearful of the punishment that they both knew would be wrought on her.

“I was hungry,” Cara said, unwavering. “I’ve not eaten in two days, and I needed sustenance. It was sitting there, I was impatient, and so I took it. Punish me, Mistress.”

The certainty in her voice was so practiced, so polished, that Kahlan could hardly believe a Mord-Sith wouldn’t see through it in a heartbeat. Surely they would realise that Cara was just covering for another, and seek out the person who had truly taken the apple? Surely they wouldn’t punish Cara for a crime that she obviously hadn’t committed, even if she had confessed to it?

Of course, those thoughts sounded ludicrous even unvoiced in Kahlan’s own head. She’d never been trained by the Mord-Sith, had barely even spent any time in their company, Cara notwithstanding, and even she knew how absurd it was that to think for even a heartbeat that they’d let Cara’s dishonesty pass quietly by. Even if they did know (which they surely did) that she was setting herself up as a scapegoat for one of her sisters, they would of course consider the untruth just as criminal as the theft itself.

Loyalty was an admirable trait, even among the Mord-Sith (perhaps especially among them, as they certainly had nothing else to be proud of), but loyalty to somebody other than the master they were all sworn to serve? Loyalty to someone who didn’t bear the title Lord Rahl, to the point of lying to a superior? That was treason, Kahlan knew, and her heart leaped into her throat as Cara recoiled from what she imagined to be a bone-shattering blow.

When she’d recovered from the impact, Cara’s lips pulled back into a feral smile. “Yes,” she rasped. “I deserve it. I take full responsibility. Do what you must. Punish me.”

She, who was about to be punished, sounded so unafraid, so effortless and willing... while Kahlan, who was as ever little more than a witness to it all, was practically choking on her own terror.

*

_It hadn’t taken much for Cara to convince her mistresses that the fault lay with her. Dahlia’s name hadn’t been mentioned, so, even if the older Mord-Sith had reason to believe that Cara was covering for one of her sisters (which, no doubt, they did), there would be no evidence of which one. Oh, she was fairly certain that they’d have their suspicions (few didn’t know about the intimate bonds that were forged among those girls fortunate enough to have shared their training with each other), but, without true evidence, there was nothing they could do but punish Cara for the crime she’d claimed to have committed... and there was certainly nothing they could do to Dahlia._

_For that alone, the soul-rending pain was worthwhile._

_Cara had no idea how long she’d been suspended over the blood pit, stripped and shackled and shorn of every last scrap of dignity she’d once held. She had no idea what had become of her body, though she was fairly certain she had shattered bones in places she hadn’t even known she had in the first place._

_This was pain entirely unlike that of her training. The pain of breaking had a very specific, very deliberate purpose – that of enlightening new recruits in the ways of their soon-to-be family; it was a necessary torture, and one that all Mord-Sith eventually learned to appreciate and be thankful for. It was the pain of breaking, the pain of training, the education they were so blessed to receive, that shaped them into the powerful warriors they would become._

_But this was different. This was pain, not for the purpose of education, but for the purpose of punishment. The only lesson to be gleaned from this suffrage was never to misbehave again. It was a lesson that Cara had learned within minutes, and yet they’d kept going, on and on and on until she was drifting in and out of unconscious, unable to move or breathe or think, as if they could possibly have believed she still needed to learn._

_“This is for your own good, Cara.”_

_She’d learned that already, too, and she had no idea why they insisted on repeating it so frequently. Still, she said nothing. She couldn’t say anything, even if she wanted to._

_“I would have expected so much more from you,” she was told, the almost-recognisable voice coming from across a great distance; her punishment had endured for so long now that Cara could no longer tell which of her mistresses was administering it (not that it mattered). “You have shown so much potential, Cara. So obedient, so strong, so powerful. Of all your sisters, you are the last I would expect to do something so foolish and so dangerous, and for so little. You know the risks as well as anyone.”_

_A low moan rumbled in Cara’s throat, but it lacked the power to break free from her. When she failed to acknowledge aloud what she’d been told, she found herself rocked by another barrage of blows, followed by the pulsing scream of an agiel pressed against her belly, its searing pain as much a part of her flesh by now as the sweat and blood that soaked it._

_“Mm...” she managed at last, speaking with great difficulty; her jaw had been among the first of her bones to be broken, because the Mord-Sith knew that trying to scream through a broken jaw only increased the pain of the punishment. “Mm... mistress. I know. I... I...”_

_Exhausted by the effort it had taken just to get those few snatches of words out, she let her head fall forwards, blood flowing in a small stream from between her lips. She watched as it hung on the air for a half-second, suspended and crystalline, before plummeting into the pit, lost forever._

_Her mistress sighed heavily, disappointment mingling with uncharacteristic sympathy. “I take it you have learned your lesson now?”_

_Another dangerous silence carved through the overheated room as Cara struggled for breath, and for strength enough to form the lone syllable of affirmation that was expected (_ required _) of her, and she was once again met with a rain of assault for her silence._

_“Mm,” she managed at last, the sound coming out as little more than a wet hacking cough and another spray of blood._

_“Very well,” her mistress (whichever one it was) said, and she could hear rather than see the cold smile on her face. “I shall be merciful, Cara, as you have proven yourself such a diligent student. Simply beg for your release, and you shall be granted it.”_

_It was a test, Cara knew, and one that she would fail if she listened to the pleading of her gut, the insistence that she do anything she was told – even beg – if it meant she would be cut down from her shackles._

_She couldn’t listen to her instincts, though, because they would get her killed. She wasn’t expected to beg; even on pain of death, Mord-Sith did not beg. It was one of the first things they were taught. If she begged, she would only prove to her mistress that she hadn’t learned a thing, and her punishment would begin anew._

_“Mm...” she forced out again, summoning every ounce of strength she had. Her body jerked under the strain of it, but the pain of her abused muscles as they went into spasm was nothing next to the pain she would receive if she failed to keep going. And so, she did. “Mord-Sith... do not... beg.”_

_She squeezed her swollen eyes shut, bracing her battered body for the strike that she knew would follow, and was rewarded for her preparation with an intentional lash of the agiel against her brutalised jaw._

_“I... I am... sorry... for my... for... my...” She gagged, blood and bile, and willed herself to carry on. “...for my trespasses. But I... will not..._ beg _.”_

_Once again, she heard the sound of her mistress sighing with exaggerated displeasure, and knew what was coming next even before it was said._

_“You are very fortunate, Cara.”_

_Cara felt a relieved smile bubbling to the surface, but was very careful not to let the expression show on her face too early._

_“You are fortunate that you are well-liked among your sisters, and you are fortunate that I personally have a great deal of respect for the way you carry yourself.” The practiced disdain hung heavy on the pain-saturated air. “If you were anyone else, you would have endured another two days of this for your insolence.”_

_It was a lie, but Cara didn’t point that out. She knew that her mistress needed to make it sound like she was doing a generous service to a favoured student, that she needed to play the card of preferential treatment lest she appear to be soft in allowing a punishment (any punishment) to end. She knew just as well that, in some years’ time when she found herself in her mistress’s place, she would be whispering the same seductive lies without so much as a second thought, and so she could not begrudge her mistress for the need to make it sound as if Cara had disappointed her, even though they both knew she’d said exactly what she was supposed to._

_“Mist—” she choked out, desperately seeking words of thanks lest she be beaten one final time for ungratfulness._

_“Hush, Cara,” she was told, even as the chains holding her upright seemed to vanish and she found herself falling to the ground. “We’re done here.”_

_The world spun and pitched as the side of Cara’s head struck the floor, and she had only long enough to press a thankful kiss (gratitude, worship, supplication, relief, and countless other nameless things, each one more earnest than the last) to the boot of whichever mistress had been so kind as to cut her down, before she was claimed by blessed unconsciousness._

*

Kahlan didn’t need to understand the nuances of life in a Mord-Sith temple to know that whatever torments Cara had spent the last hour enduring were violently, brutally different to those she’d endured for the duration of her breaking. It was all in Cara’s face, bright as daylight, in her eyes (even expressionless and spell-shaded as they were), in the taut rigidity of her posture, in the way she choked and swallowed and refused to cry out. It rang out, clearer than a bell, through every last inch of her.

There had been no escaping it while it was happening, and it had been one of the most torturous hours of Kahlan’s life. She’d thought she had grown immune to watching Cara suffer at the hands of her imaginary sisters, having watched her through the torture that had led to her breaking... but she hadn’t been prepared for this. Nothing in the world could have prepared her for the way Cara had croaked out her apologies as though it was the greatest labour either of them could ever imagine.

She recalled distinctly the way Cara had screamed and screamed when she’d first picked up the agiel, surrendering when the task was finally done to a spate of dry heaving that had left Kahlan seriously thinking about calling in Zedd to end the spell. She remembered how it had shattered her very soul to hear those screams... and yet now, seeing what she had just seen in the last hour’s worth of nonstop pain and endless torment, she would have given everything she owned to go back and hear those child’s screams instead.

It was, she mused, the context so much more than the act itself. Cara was being punished, brutally and to within an inch of her life (and perhaps even beyond that, given how many times Kahlan had been sure that Cara must have been killed and resurrected with the breath of life); she had endured torture beyond torture, punishment beyond punishment, and all for a crime she hadn’t committed. Kahlan could imagine – far more clearly than she would have liked – precisely what the Mord-Sith had done to Cara, and she had endured it all, without complaint, in the name of protecting a woman who didn’t even deserve it.

Kahlan didn’t hate easily. She had hated Cara for a long time, but she’d been more than justified in that, and stood firmly by her early assessment of the other woman despite how completely her mind had been changed by the passage of time. Cara had done terrible things, things that had directly affected the Mother Confessor and those dearest to her, and Kahlan had never once questioned whether or not her hatred towards the Mord-Sith had been acceptable. As different as her feelings about Cara were now, she knew that she had no reason to feel guilty – or to apologise – for having hated her so deeply for so much of their early time together.

Hating Cara was one thing; they had been forced to spend time together. But Kahlan had never before felt such violent hatred for a woman she’d never even met as she felt now for Dahlia. The woman who had been the cause of Cara’s trauma, who was the reason she could hardly breathe, much less speak, who was the reason Kahlan had just watched Cara suffer for an hour (days, she was sure, in the spell) without so much as a moment’s reprieve. The woman who had put her through all this with her foolishness and her shallow immaturity. The woman who did not deserve Cara, who had never deserved her, and who never would.

It wasn’t mere jealousy, not any more. It wasn’t simply because Cara had been able to voice her feelings for Dahlia (for a woman she didn’t even know!) when she had never been able to do so for Kahlan. No, it was so much more than that meagre pettiness. It was _this_. It was the pain that Cara was willing to endure, her relentless willingness to put herself in the path of agiels and blows and unimaginable torment, again and again and again, so that Dahlia wouldn’t have to.

And why? Because she believed that she truly cared for her. Because they had been thrown together as children who knew no better, and had come to depend on each other for survival in the face of the atrocities that had been inflicted on them, even at such a young age, until everything but each other had been eradicated from them. It was wrong, it was twisted, and it was beyond cruel. It was Mord-Sith... and Kahlan hated it. She hated _her_ , Dahlia, for being part of it, even though she knew that she was as much a victim of what had been done to her as Cara was.

But Dahlia wasn’t her friend. Dahlia wasn’t the woman Kahlan had spent more than a year travelling with, or the woman she had come to care about (truly care about, not because compassion was all she knew, but because she’d come to _know_ Cara). Dahlia, the Mord-Sith Dahlia, who had been trained and broken alongside Cara, didn’t exist, and so Kahlan couldn’t feel a thing for her. _Cara_ existed, and it was she that Kahlan cared about. It was Cara she loved, like a sister, and so fiercely that the heat of it left her breathless.

Oh, there was no denying that the love she felt was different (wholly, completely, vibrantly different) to the love she felt for Richard, but it was no less true, and it certainly meant no less.

Richard had been right when he’d told her that she hurt when Cara hurt, that the other woman’s suffering had somehow become her own as well. This proved that, and it was taking every ounce of self-control she had to keep reminding herself of Zedd’s words and holding herself in check before she could begin shaking Cara and pleading with her to wake up; she wanted, more than anything, to bring her back, to snap her out of the spell’s unwitting tortures, to end this now before it became too much for them both. The only thing that kept her from doing so was remembering, again and again, Zedd’s insistences that it would cause more harm even than this, however impossible that was to believe right now.

It was more than enough to keep her from feeling the sympathy she knew Dahlia deserved, though. It was more than enough to fuel the fire of her hatred, unjust as it was, and more than enough to keep her wishing (with a fierceness that frightened her) that the woman had never existed in either world. Would she be laughing, Kahlan wondered, if she knew what horrors Cara was putting herself through just in the hope of remembering her?

Beside her, Cara moaned, the sound deep and rich and raw with pain and relief and more things than Kahlan could count. Shifting reflexively, she turned to pull the suffering Mord-Sith into her arms, lips and fingertips tracing nonsensical patterns over the sweat-soaked plane of her brow.

Cara’s breathing quickened, seemingly at the contact, and another soft sound escaped her. This time, it was raw pain, pure and unashamed, a keening whimper that voiced the true extent of all the torture she’d just been forced to withstand. She must have been left alone, Kahlan realised, or she would never have allowed such an unabashedly helpless sound to fall from her lips. In response, because it was the only thing she could do, Kahlan tightened her arms around her.

“You deserve more than this, Cara,” she heard herself whisper, not knowing where the words were coming from, but unable to stop them. “This woman doesn’t deserve you.”

Cara was gasping, struggling to breathe, so Kahlan leaned back just far enough to give the other woman room to gulp air. All she wanted to do was hold her, knowing as she did that Cara wouldn’t be able protest the gesture as she normally would have, but she couldn’t even do that. Cara had been so badly beaten, even within the safe prison of her own mind, that she couldn’t even be held without the risk of choking. Kahlan felt her temper flaring up once again, matching Cara’s helplessness breath for breath.

“I hate this!” she shouted tearfully, what sliver of self-control she had once held now long abandoned. “I hate that you feel you need to do these things. You’d do anything to spare her pain, wouldn’t you? You’d let yourself endure all of this, a thousand times over, just to stop her from feeling even the smallest hurt. You’d throw yourself through the fires of the Underworld if it meant she wouldn’t have to feel the tiniest pinprick. You put yourself through it all, all for _her_ , all to spare _her_ pain... and the whole time you’re putting _me_ through it, too. All of it, Cara. I’m right there with you... suffering, bleeding, screaming right along with you. All of it! You’re _torturing_ me, Cara!”

Cara reached for her, and Kahlan’s heart stopped. Casting aside rational thought, letting herself forget that Cara wasn’t even aware of her presence, much less her words, she leaned in. She let the trembling leather-covered fingertips brush across her cheek, and closed her eyes. Drank in the sensation, the affection, the love. Absorbed it all, as if it was hers by right.

“Cara,” she breathed, almost desperate.

Through her obvious agony, Cara smiled.

“I did it... for you...”

*

_“Don’t. Cara, don’t talk.”_

_Cara forced her smile to widen, even as she felt sure that the pain of it would cause her jaw to shatter completely. She wasn’t sure how long had passed since she’d fainted, only that she hadn’t been punished for the loss of consciousness and that that fact was a testament to how brutal her punishment had truly been. It was only when unconsciousness had been earned (really and genuinely earned) that it was not torn away in the same instant it descended._

_At some point, she had been deposited in her bedchamber, still naked and battered, soaked in sweat and blood and bruises (and spirits only knew what else), but whole. She lay there now, on the floor, unable to crawl even the half-foot to her bed, and relished the freedom of not being in chains for the first time in four days._

_Dahlia had entered just a few moments ago, and had instantly fallen to her knees in horror at the sight of her; had she not been so overwhelmed by exhaustion and pain, Cara would have laughed. Wasn’t this exactly the kind of juvenile behaviour she had told Dahlia to abolish? Wasn’t this exactly the childish immaturity that had gotten them both into this position in the first place? And yet, as Dahlia tore her gloves off and lovingly cradled Cara’s aching head, cool fingertips trailing across overheated skin, she couldn’t quite bring herself to care._

_“You... worry too much,” she managed, fighting to keep from choking on the words and her own tongue. “I’m... fine...”_

_Dahlia sighed, and it sounded as if her heart was breaking._

_“You shouldn’t have done it,” she said. “You should have let me. It was my fault. I’m the one who broke the rules. I’m the one who stole the apple. I should have been punished for it._ Me _, Cara, not you.”_

_With a great deal of effort, Cara raised her head, barely half an inch, meeting Dahlia’s gaze through bruise-swollen eyes._

_“I said... I’d protect you... didn’t I?” She tried to huff that same melodramatically sigh that her mistress had used on her, but it hurt too much. “You are... such an idiot.”_

_Dahlia laughed through her tears. “I’m not the one who put themselves through this,” she reminded Cara, not quite as gently as she’d probably intended. “You did that, and willingly.”_

_More than anything, Cara wanted to sit up completely, to face her friend as close as she possibly could, to roll her eyes and laugh and chastise her for being such a sentimental fool. But she couldn’t do any of those things, and so she settled for drawing another painful breath and relishing the small hum of victory that surfaced when it didn’t kill her._

_“Fine...” she forced out through tightly-clenched teeth. “I’m... an idiot... too. We both are. Happy... now?”_

_“No!” Dahlia cried. “Do you truly think any of this makes me happy? Cara, what you put yourself through for me—”_

_“—will teach you...” Cara snapped, as viciously as she could muster, “...to_ grow up _.”_

_As if she’d been physically deflated, all the fight seemed to go out of Dahlia. If she wasn’t still bearing the effects of her dedication to her friend, the scars of her affection, Cara would almost have felt bad for causing her such sorrow. As it was, she merely felt the sharp sting of satisfaction at knowing that she was right. She had protected Dahlia, just as she had always promised she would, and now Dahlia had no choice but to see the chaos caused by her childish folly._

_Instead of apologising, though, Dahlia exhaled tightly and climbed to her feet. It was a good start, Cara mused, watching through half-lidded eyes as Dahlia crossed the room to the washbasin in the corner. Her vision blurred as she fought to focus, and she could only listen through a dreamlike haze as the sound of sloshing water filled hear ears. Dahlia was soaking a cloth, she imagined, and tried in vain to sit up and tell her that cleaning her wounds was unnecessary._

_“Hush,” Dahlia said firmly, sensing her efforts and sounding just like Cara’s mistress had so many times before. “You suffered for me, so now I shall do this for you. And, just like I wasn’t able to tell you not to do that, you don’t get to tell me not to do this.”_

_Defiance rose up within Cara, the contrary need to keep holding the power and giving the orders... but she lacked the strength to see anything through. Even if she did summon a half-choked sentence or two of protestation, there was nothing left in her body to back up her words. No matter what arguments she made, whatever opposition she mustered, it didn’t matter; Dahlia would simply hold her down and do as she wanted anyway. Cara’s freedom, her power, was gone (at least for as long as her body was in such a pitiful state), and so she chose the graciousness of a reluctant surrender over the humiliation of a futile rebellion._

_“Why do you care so much?” Dahlia asked softly as she returned to Cara’s side, and Cara moaned low in her throat at the cool dampness of the cloth on her swollen jaw._

_“You are... a puppy,” Cara told her. “You... cannot care... for yourself.” She coughed, pain arcing through her, and Dahlia brushed back her hair (so long and so untamed, free as it was from its braid after so much torture). “Someone has to.”_

_“Not like this,” Dahlia sighed. “This is too much, Cara.”_

_Desperate, Cara tried to sit up, only to find the effort thwarted by another spasm of gut-churning pain. Breathing heavily with the vicarious anguish of watching her friend suffer, Dahlia gently eased her back down, letting the already-bloodied cloth trail lower to clean her muscle-strained shoulders. It felt frustratingly good._

_Murmurs of comfort and solace fell from Dahlia’s lips as she laboured, and Cara wished that she still had strength enough in her to ignore then as she knew she was supposed to. But the words sounded so heartfelt, and the cloth felt so wonderful against her ice-hot skin... so wonderful..._

_“Dahlia...” she heard herself mumble, almost delirious._

_“Hush,” Dahlia repeated. “You may think of me as a child, Cara, but I’m as grown as you. And I’m every bit as strong, too.”_

_“Perhaps...” Cara shot back, breath coming with less difficulty for every moment that passed with that delicious cloth pressed against her. “But you are... twice as foolish... and... twice as headstrong...”_

_“And you are twice as arrogant!” Dahlia shouted._

_Cara chuckled, despite the pain it caused. Dahlia was right in that, she supposed, and she found it reassuring (on a level she hadn’t realised she needed) to hear the uncharacteristic harshness in her friend’s voice. It coated the sweetness, veiled the sympathy and the tenderness, and reminded Cara in no uncertain terms that they were both Mord-Sith. The comfort may have been weakness, but the roughness grounded her and reminded her of who and what she was. It was exactly what she needed, and she allowed herself the liberty of lying back once more and relaxing into Dahlia’s touch once she’d taken her fill of calloused reassurance._

_“You’re broken all over,” Dahlia said sadly as she continued to clean and tend to Cara’s wounds. “You are a mess.”_

_Though she wanted to, Cara didn’t say anything. She kept her eyes closed, allowing her body to drink deep of the first non-violent contact it had felt in four days. There was nothing to compare with it, and Cara knew that it was as valuable a lesson as that of how to inflict the pain in the first place; that first almost-tender touch, those first offerings of not-quite compassion, that everlasting, infinite moment where pain gave way to something like comfort... they were tools, precious and useful, and just as important as the pain itself. Even this was a lesson, though Cara was in no condition to remember the finer details just then._

_Slowly, and with a pointed deliberateness that left Cara believing Dahlia truly did have the potential to be as powerful as she herself, the cloth inched lower, and Cara barely flinched as it reached her belly and skirted the most severe of her injuries. The pain would fade, but the reverence in Dahlia’s touches would not, and neither would the depth of respect in them. Cara had suffered for four days for Dahlia; she had earned this._

_“Cara,” Dahlia breathed, sounding almost as breathless as Cara felt. The cloth stopped moving, resting atop the flat plane of Cara’s abdomen, torn and bloodied as it was._

_“It’s... nothing,” Cara said, eyes still closed, panting through the pain, willing the cloth to start moving again. “It’s nothing... Dahlia.”_

_“No,” Dahlia whispered, sounding more awed than Cara had ever heard._

_Suddenly, it wasn’t the cloth, but Dahlia’s fingertips that were brushing the sensitive skin of Cara’s stomach. Her touch was featherlike and tentative, supplicant and awestruck and a thousand other things all at once, and it felt like home. So much better than the cloth. It felt good. So very good._

_“Dahlia,” she heard herself breathe._

_“It’s more than nothing...” Dahlia went on, seemingly lost in thought. “Cara... it’s so much more.”_

_And then she was leaning in, warm breath dancing across Cara’s lips, close enough to taste. Cara felt her eyes roll back in her head behind her eyelids, even as she fought to open them again, but she was lost. Helpless against the barely-existent tenderness of Dahlia’s fingertips as they brushed so lightly across her belly, powerless against the phantom taste of Dahlia’s breath (too close but not nearly close enough), defenceless against the surge of heat that seemed to be flaring up in all of her at once. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Couldn’t do anything except_ be _and_ feel _and_ exist _, and... and..._

_“..._ Cara _.”_

_It was more than her name. It was more than a promise, more than a prayer, more even than devotion. It was as though she was the only thing that existed in all the world and beyond, as though there was nothing and nobody else, as though even the rippling patterns of abuse that painted her skin after the torture she’d endured were less than nothing, as though she were all the strength and power and heat that had been trained within her, but also so much more, so much more than words could express, and... and..._

_..and then Dahlia’s mouth was on hers, gentle and tentative, almost frightened, but possessive at the same time, possessive in a way that Cara hadn’t known the childlike Dahlia was capable of._

_And suddenly Cara was drowning. Drowning in the featherlike brushes of Dahlia’s fingertips, in the softness of her mouth and the rightness of its fit against her own, in the way her pain seemed to evaporate in a haze of lips and breath and touch and_ Dahlia _. Only Dahlia. Always Dahlia._

_“Cara,” Dahlia panted, breaking away for less than a heartbeat, and Cara finally found the strength to open her eyes._

_“What... are you... doing?” she managed. It was all she could manage._

_Dahlia smiled, primal and aching and loving and tender and wrong and right, and more beautiful than anything Cara had ever seen in her entire life._

_“Growing up.”_


	11. Chapter 11

“Oh no...”

Kahlan felt sick. She knew, as surely as she knew her own name, what was about to happen, and she knew more certainly than she’d ever known anything that she simply didn’t have it in her to sit idly by and watch as it happened. Not this. Not so soon. Not _now_.

“Cara,” she heard herself beg. “Cara, please. Not this. I’ve done everything you’ve asked me to. I’ve seen you in pain, beaten and broken, beyond anything I can do for you. I’ve seen you pledge yourself to a woman who’s going to betray you, and I’ve seen you tell her things you’d never tell me, even when you thought we were dying. I’ve heard you talk to her as though she’s the most important thing in the world, all while you send me to the Underworld and back again for your own stupid masochistic cause. I’ve seen everything, just like I promised you I would, and I have done it all for you. But I don’t want to see this. Not _this_ , Cara. Please, please don’t make me see this.”

For her part, Cara gave a low, rumbling moan. “...Dahlia...”

“Cara!” Kahlan cried, pleading. “Don’t do this to me. Don’t do this.”

It was beyond either of their power, though. She knew that, and she’d known going in that it would be a possibility; Zedd had told her that she might have to bear witness to this, to the _intimacies_ that Cara had shared with Dahlia... but that didn’t stop it hurting to know that the moment was here and now.

Already, Cara was shifting restlessly, leathers suddenly too tight even to the naked eye, colour rising hot in her cheeks, and Kahlan felt like a voyeur. She would have given anything to leave the room, just until this was over, but she couldn’t. She wouldn’t leave Cara alone, not even for this. The moment Kahlan turned her back, whatever her reason for doing so, would inevitably be exactly the moment Cara chose to irreparably damage herself. That was just the way things worked, and Kahlan had no intention of tempting fate for the sake of her own modesty.

“Stop...” Cara groaned, and her breathing was heavy, weighted down by anything but pain. “Dahlia... stop.”

 _Thank the Creator_ , Kahlan thought, though she knew that her relief would be short-lived.

Not even the Creator, merciful and omniscient as she was, would be able to put a stop to this.

*

_“Dahlia.”_

_Through the haze of pain and the heat of what Dahlia’s attentions were igniting in the depths of her, it was barely within Cara’s power just to form her friend’s name, mumbled dizzily as it was against the curve of her mouth. Certainly, it was almost more than she could do to force Dahlia to listen, occupied as she was with the touch of her lips and the caress of her tongue and the countless other things she was doing to ensure that Cara would forget who and what and where she was. But, of course, Cara hadn’t gained the respect of all her sisters by not doing things simply because she was incapable of them, and so she reached deep into herself for the strength to stop this before it escalated beyond saving._

_“Stop!”_

_Dahlia pulled back, breathless and hungry-eyed. “For you, Cara,” she said, and it sounded like the strained effort of speaking was as great for her as it was for Cara. “This is all for you.”_

_“I don’t...” Cara choked._

_She couldn’t say that she didn’t want it, because that would have been a lie (and one that Dahlia would see through in a heartbeat); she was suddenly acutely aware of her own nakedness, of the bruises and open wounds that still covered every inch of her, and of the fact that she could no longer feel them through the overwhelming desire to have Dahlia’s mouth on every part of her (despite her mind’s too-loud protests). Still, though, she had to say something._

_“I... you... Dahlia...” She moaned, deep and low as Dahlia’s lips brushed against her fevered cheek. “Dahlia... you don’t need... to prove yourself. Not... not to me.” Her lungs were screaming, and it wasn’t just because Dahlia was leaning in again. “Never to me.”_

_“I know that,” Dahlia whispered, her breath hot against Cara’s broken skin. “You’re not my mistress, Cara. You’re my friend.”_

_“This...” Cara managed. “This isn’t... this is more than...”_

_“So much more,” Dahlia affirmed, and reclaimed Cara’s lips._

_Over the pounding of blood in her ears, Cara’s mind demanded that she stop this. It was madness, foolishness, weakness. It needed to end. She knew it, knew that it could only end badly if it was allowed to continue. She knew that they would both be punished if they were caught engaging in such frivolity, and knew above all that she simply could not withstand another hour (much less a week) above the blood pit. She knew all that, she knew it had to end..._

_...but her body wasn’t listening._

*

When Cara surged upwards, it caught Kahlan completely by surprise. She knew Cara was easy, knew how just how little it took for her to become worked up (in every conceivable way, and the thought caused a hot blush to stain the Confessor’s cheeks), but she hadn’t expected to see it happen so quickly here. Not with the protests barely even fully voiced, the need to stop still gurgling in her throat.

And yet, before Kahlan had fully processed exactly what those protests had been, much less what they’d been about, Cara was suddenly throwing herself upon her as though they’d never existed at all. Suddenly, leather-covered fists were tangling in her hair and Cara’s open mouth was descending with rabid, searing intensity upon her own... and, suddenly, Kahlan couldn’t breathe.

“Cara!” she yelped, instinctively tearing herself away. “I’m not her!”

Oblivious, Cara kept going, jaw working tightly in a kiss that no longer had a recipient, and, before she had the chance to remember the body still in front of her and dive on her again, the Mother Confessor scrambled to her feet and took a few very long steps back and away from the impassioned Mord-Sith.

She couldn’t be a part of this. Her lips tingled, itching and pulsing from the quarter-second’s worth of pressure Cara had been able to apply, and every inch of her felt as though it was on fire. What had happened could hardly be described as a contact at all, much less something worth reacting to; it wasn’t even a blip, really, and she knew that Cara would have been laughing herself to tears if she thought for a moment that she’d caused the Mother Confessor to blush from such a brief and unintentional incident... and yet she felt the heat of it as though it had lasted a lifetime.

It had been less than a heartbeat, less than half of one, and still, even in that barely-realised moment of not-even-contact, Kahlan had felt every last breath of Cara’s urgency, every last pulse of what she was feeling. Cara was locked up in the spell, tangled up in Dahlia, reacting to kisses and whispers of affection and intimacies that Kahlan couldn’t see, and yet, through that one fractured moment that hadn’t even been a kiss, Kahlan could feel it all.

And, despite herself, some walled-off corner of her ached for more.

On the floor, Cara moaned. Kahlan closed her eyes, tried to block out the sound, the sight, the sensation. Tried to block out everything that was Cara, what she was doing, the things she was so obviously reacting to, the way she was feeling, the heat radiating from her, all of it.

She needed to get out, to leave Cara alone with her phantom lover, alone with her intimacy and her privacy and the inevitability of what was happening right before her eyes. She needed to not be in the same room as this, as _her_. She needed to not still be hearing Zedd’s voice reminding her of all the things that could go wrong if she looked away for even a moment. She needed, more than anything else in the world, to listen to her self-preservation instinct, and get out of there before the heat and the need and the hunger consumed her as it had already taken Cara.

Ears still roaring with the thrum of blood that Cara had fired up within her, she turned to face the wall.

“I’ll be over here,” she managed weakly. “If you... need me.”

*

_In the instant she realised that Cara wasn’t going to put up a fight, Dahlia’s tongue was plundering the depths of her mouth._

_Cara, meanwhile, was forgetting how to breathe._

_Between their bodies, she felt her fingers flexing, aching for flesh-on-flesh contact, and summoned every ounce of power she had to raise her arms and fumble for the laces and buckles of Dahlia’s leathers. Blind, and not just because her eyes were squeezed shut, she navigated by memory and by instinct, tugging impatiently at the first fastening she managed to grasp, neither knowing nor caring what part of Dahlia she was uncovering, even as her hands shrieked with the unnecessary pain of it._

_“Don’t,” Dahlia told her, pulling back only as far as it took to get the words out, and her teeth caught Cara’s bottom lip._

_“Get... get them off,” Cara told her, wishing she had strength enough to make it sound like the demand it needed to be. “I... Dahlia, I...”_

_“You...” Dahlia replied softly, “...need to be_ quiet _.”_

 _Still, because she seemed to know how desperately Cara needed to command right then, she leaned back (just far enough, no more) and worked at extricating herself from her clothing. It took far longer than either of them would have liked, but the brief lapse granted Cara a few precious moments to catch her breath and let her battered body recover. Her jaw was throbbing with pain, unbearable almost to the point of unconsciousness (unbearable even for_ her _), but all Cara could think about was how desperately she needed to put it to use in worshipping the inner curves of Dahlia’s mouth again._

_Impatient, she reached up again and yanked Dahlia, still partly-dressed, towards her. Dahlia grunted her disapproval, but made no complaint as Cara devoured her lips once again, drowning herself and her pain and all the brutality, the horror, the tortures of the last four days in the cool earthen taste of her friend. So foreign, so alien, and yet so achingly, deliciously familiar. So much like home. So vibrant, so intoxicating. So Dahlia._

_This was why she had done it, her soul cried out. This was why she’d put herself through so much agony, and why she would do so again in a heartbeat if she ever needed to. The way Dahlia looked at her, the way she touched her, the way she broke the rules for her. The way she was kissing her now, as though Cara were her only reason for existing. As if Cara was so much more than her sister, more than her mistress. As if she was more (though she knew it was blasphemy to just think it) than even the Lord Rahl himself._

_She groaned (dangerously close to a whimper, though she would deny that to her grave) as Dahlia pulled away once more, and arched up as far as her body would allow to try and recapture her mouth, her jaw, her throat, any part that she could reach. She needed her. She needed her touch, her kisses, her lips, the taste of her tongue, the way their bodies fitted together, the battered and the pure. She needed her, all of her, and now._

_Dahlia chuckled, darkness blended seamlessly with anticipation, and climbed roughly to her feet; Cara let her head drop back down, disappointment at the loss of contact overpowering even the soul-rending pain, and the impact as she struck the frozen stone floor jolted her brain and mingled with the need to render her breathless and dizzy._

_She needed more. More than this, more than wet kisses from chaste lips and eager tongues, more than Dahlia pulling away, even if it was just to finish stripping herself for her. She needed more, so much more. More than friendship, and more than loyalty. More than the two of them, and more than their bodies._

_“More...” she moaned, and prayed it was enough._

*

Kahlan had learned quickly that having her back turned did practically nothing to quell the unfortunate embarrassment of her situation.

If she was entirely honest with herself (something she tried to be as often as possible, but which was becoming rather more difficult under the present circumstances), she wasn’t entirely sure what was bothering her the most – the sounds of raw physicality that dripped from Cara like water from a cracked faucet, or the fact that she knew beyond all doubt that, when she awoke, Cara would find this entire disastrous event nothing short of hilarious.

“I hate you,” Kahlan muttered irritably at the wall.

“Yes...” Cara mumbled wantonly. “...I know.”

It took every once of self-control Kahlan had to keep from driving her head through the wall as Cara’s too-agreeable murmurings trailed off into something not unlike a whine.

“I _really_ hate you,” Kahlan said again, frustrated.

Cara exhaled, low and deep and breathy. “ _Mmmm_...”

Unable to stay facing the wall for a second longer, Kahlan whirled around to face the obliviously writhing Mord-Sith.

“Stop that!” she snapped, knowing perfectly well that it wouldn’t make the least bit of difference, and that it certainly would do nothing to halt what Cara was feeling or what she was doing. “Stop it right now, Cara!”

A smile lifted the edges of Cara’s lips, desire mingling with something that Kahlan could’ve sworn was real emotion.

“You are...” she panted, choking on something that was either pain or pleasure (or, knowing the Mord-Sith as Kahlan did, possibly both). “You... are... beautiful.”

Kahlan snorted derisively. “And _you_ are a shameless flatterer,” she grumbled, still nursing her wounded pride. “Don’t listen to her, Dahlia.”

“Let me...” Cara went on, not the least bit perturbed by Kahlan’s efforts to thwart her advances. “Let me... I want... I want to...”

“No, you don’t,” Kahlan told her with a smoothness that belied the thundering of her heart and the roar of too-hot blood in her ears. “You want to go to bed and sleep this off. You want to remember that this is a bad idea, that it’s stupid and it’s dangerous and you’re too badly injured to enjoy it anyway. You want to stop this, right now. Right _now_ , Cara. _That’s_ what you want to do.”

The low, suggestive moan that left Cara’s lips, cutting her insistences off, told her that they were, in fact, as far from the case as was physically possible.

*

_“Let me...” Cara repeated, both loathing and loving the urgency that had seeped unbidden into her voice. “Let me... let me touch you. I... I need to...”_

_“Hush,” Dahlia told her, authority mingling with warmth and alien desire._

_Finally naked, she stood over Cara, smiling down at her with the same sort of affectionate possessiveness that they’d both seen in their mistress’ eyes more times than they could count. Whatever Cara may have told her about not having to prove herself, Dahlia was certainly doing just that now... proving, beyond all doubt and all question, that she too was a Mord-Sith. Proving that she was as worthy of the title as Cara herself, that she had earned the right to stand beside her instead of behind her._

_This was a consummation, but it was a possession as well._

_It amused Cara, a great deal more than it should have (and certainly more than she’d ever admit to her friend), that it was only when she’d been beaten to within an inch of her life that Dahlia was able to possess her._

_“I am yours,” Dahlia said._

_“Mine...” Cara echoed, astonished by how needy she sounded. How needy she was. “You... are... mine.”_

_“...just as_ you _are_ mine _.”_

_Cara groaned, the alien lust surging up within her again and threatening to devour her. They had seen each other naked many times, some admittedly more intimate than others, but never quite like this. Never before had Dahlia bared herself so completely, so unabashedly, so unfettered and primitive, and so exclusively for Cara. Never like this, with her mouth, her hands, her body, all swearing themselves in supplication._

_Arousal was new to Cara. She was still young, still unfamiliar with the more private contours of her own body, much less those of another’s, and she knew Dahlia (ever more youthful than she, even though their ages were the same) couldn’t possibly be much different. This was new, strange and new, to them both. It was uncertain and confusing, and yet the flaring passion she felt rising up like open flames in her felt so right that she could scarcely believe they hadn’t been doing this all their lives._

_It was a formality, she realised, even as she tried to reach for Dahlia, (always just out of her grasp); what they shared was not love – Mord-Sith did not_ love _– but it was pure and true, and it ran so much deeper than leathers and agiels and chains and torture. This was just the spilling over of what had been nurtured in their blackened souls for years. It was a wordless articulation, she realised, of the bond that was so much more than either one of them alone._

_“Cara,” Dahlia breathed, kneeling at long last beside her._

_Her lips returned, this time trailing featherlike kisses across Cara’s brow, her cheeks, her throat, all of her, tongue flicking out at sporadic intervals as Cara fought through the pain to reach for her again._

_“Cara,” she chastised between brushes with her lips, caresses with her tongue, nips with her teeth. “You must stop this.”_

_“Let me...” Cara whined again, the words falling from her lips like a mantra even as her flailing fingers failed yet again to find their target. “I need... to touch you. Dahlia... let me...”_

_“No,” Dahlia told her, trailing her tongue along the bruised curve of her jaw, pain kissed by pleasure, and Cara shivered all over. “You’ve done enough. Too much. You are helpless because of me. You are in pain, bleeding,_ broken _, all for the sake of my misdeeds, and this is all I can do. I am not the one who needs protecting from this, Cara. I am not the one who needs this. You are mine. Your broken body is mine, and I will mend it.”_

_Her mouth moved from her face at last, and Cara’s shivers turned to shudders as Dahlia latched onto her collarbone; suddenly, though she knew her authority was in danger, she couldn’t bring herself to care. For all the pain that had been so fundamental a part of her existence for so many hours that she’d lost count, Dahlia was remarkably skilled in making Cara forget she’d ever felt it. The same spots that still sported bruises and welts, that still screamed in agony if she so much as thought about moving them, now sang a completely different song under Dahlia’s blissfully attentive ministrations._

_Whatever this was, however it was defined – whatever it said about Cara, about Dahlia, about_ them _– Cara knew that she needed more. It was the only thing she did know, the only thought she could form, the only concept in her pain-hazed world that made any kind of sense. And so, bowing just as she had to her mistress’s demands so many times before, she surrendered to this._

_“Fine...” she heard herself whimper, as if she had a choice. “Take me, then. Make me... make me... yours.”_

*

There was a rhythmic beauty to the way Cara moved. Even after offering herself in submission (or coming as close to it as she was capable of), she still used her body with the same lack of abandon, the same precision of purpose and intensity that she applied to combat. Kahlan didn’t want to watch, and just the thought of what she was doing made her twitch with a depth of disgust and self-loathing like she’d never known, but she simply couldn’t keep herself from appreciating it. It was impossible not to.

Zedd had said that there would be intimacies, had taken great pains to steel her for exactly this moment, but even that hadn’t prepared Kahlan for just how intimate it really was. Just her and Cara in a room, a small room, and Kahlan the lone witness to every shift, every murmur, every groan, every stuttered almost-demand. She, the lone witness to all of this... and she the only one in all the world, except for the Mord-Sith herself, who would see firsthand exactly what Cara’s first time was like.

Of their own accord, Cara’s hips rose, not quite bucking but close to it, and Kahlan felt her throat go dry as she watched. She ached to tear her gaze away again, to seek solace once more in the expressionless face of the wall or the door or the window (anything without those curves), but she knew it wouldn’t help. Staring at the wall would no more erase the sight of Cara’s writhing and squirming from her mind, now that she’d seen it, than driving her fist through it would somehow suck the tension from the room. 

Besides, she _couldn’t_ look away. Not now. Not with the way Cara’s head turned, mouth open, features tight, unseeing eyes locked irremovably on Kahlan as though she really did know that she was there.

In spite of herself, in spite of how fundamentally wrong it was, Kahlan allowed herself to picture the scene. She saw Dahlia hovering over Cara's bruise-mottled body, saw the path she was tracing, and knew (as if she truly could see the other woman as well) each and every detail of what she was doing. She supposed that picturing it – seeing it as she was sure Cara was seeing it instead of from the isolated and voyeuristic distance that she really was – should have made it more bearable, but it didn’t. It just made her ache.

Again, Cara’s hips jerked, and her hands balled into fists at her sides. If she wasn’t so vividly aware of what was truly happening to her, Kahlan would almost have suspected she was being tortured again. There was, she knew, a very fine line between pain and pleasure, and it was just like a Mord-Sith to blur that line until it was less than nonexistent. Kahlan wanted to strangle Dahlia for doing this, and Cara for taking it. She wanted to throttle them both, to hold them down and force them to understand that what they were doing was fundamentally wrong... that there was so much more to intimacy than _this_.

What had Dahlia said, she wondered, to make the authority-wielding Cara so effortlessly compliant? What had she done to make Cara so eager, so hungry, so desperate for what she had to offer? A thousand possibilities swam through Kahlan’s mind, each one causing her blood to run hotter (and then, instantly, colder) than the last, and ultimately she just threw up her hands in surrender.

Ultimately, it didn’t matter. Dahlia, she had decided beyond the realm of rational thought, was manipulative and cruel and everything that was wrong with the Mord-Sith; she was, Kahlan had convinced herself completely, everything that had ever been wrong with Cara. She had decided on it, and no amount of exposition would ever change her mind. Every last whimpering moan or shuddering plea from Cara’s lips just further confirmed the truth of it.

“More...” Cara managed, not for the first time. “I need more... I need...”

Ignoring her better judgement, Kahlan dropped to her knees beside the writhing Mord-Sith, fixing her with the steeliest glare she could muster.

“You need to realise,” she said, holding Cara’s face in her hands, “that this isn’t real.”

Of course it wasn’t. Whatever Cara was convinced she was feeling, whatever she believed she was experiencing with Dahlia, it was no more real than any of her other phantom memories had been; in fact, Kahlan reasoned, knowing as she did how completely Dahlia would turn around and betray her, it was even _less_ real.

If she were honest, she almost couldn’t wait for the moment when it happened, for Dahlia to finally prove herself (as Kahlan knew she would) to be the monster that Cara had denied ever existed, the calculating Mord-Sith that would betray someone who had once meant so much to her out of some deluded sense of twisted loyalty to Darken Rahl. Cara needed to see that, so much more than she needed to see this.

This wasn’t real.

And yet, as Cara turned, wrapping herself around Kahlan as though it were truly her and not Dahlia who was causing all this, whimpering out her enjoyment, pressing in earnest with lips and tongue and the barest scraping of teeth against her neck (and Kahlan, though she knew she should stop it, was paralysed), clinging to her with white-knuckle intensity, arching up against nonexistent touches and bringing her most intimate parts into too-direct contact with Kahlan’s own... as she begged over and over again for _more_... as her temperature rose along with her ever-increasing desire... as her desperation lanced through both of them with all the uncontrolled force of a hurricane...

...well, Kahlan certainly couldn’t deny that it _felt_ real.

*

_Possession was not supposed to feel like worship._

_That was the only thought that Cara could form as Dahlia paid homage with her mouth, her hands, her body. It was supposed to feel like domination. It was supposed to feel like powerlessness, weakness, punishment. She was supposed to feel helpless and supplicant, as though Dahlia truly was her superior, as though Cara truly was hers._

_It shouldn’t have felt like this, like affection and warmth and desire and reverence. It wasn’t supposed to feel like she was an alter or a pedestal or a goddess at whose feet Dahlia was laying herself in wanton prayer._

_But that was how she felt. And she could not control the surging wave of emotion, of feeling, of sensation, of things that had nothing to do with pain or endurance or strength or power. She felt helpless, yes, but not in the way she was supposed to. She wasn’t helpless against Dahlia; she was helpless against herself, against her own personal weaknesses, against the sweet feelings that should have been burned out of her years ago._

_She could not get enough of them._

_Dahlia’s lips were at her breasts now, her hands tracing intricate patterns across her abdomen, and the two sensations combined to tear a hungry sound – something between a moan and a whine – from Cara’s throat. She wanted the evasive teasing to end, wanted Dahlia to go further south and sate the frustrated need that was surging between her thighs... but, at the same time, she didn’t want to lose the rippling pleasure that was Dahlia’s talented tongue as it circled her too-tender nipples or those featherlike fingertips as they skirted the edge of her naval, as if Dahlia knew (but then, how could she, when Cara herself hadn’t?) just how sensitive that particular area was._

_She wanted more, and less, and everything all at once. She wanted the pleasure of this coupled with the pain of her beating, the vibrating hum of Dahlia’s lips against her mingled with the remembered scream of agiels and the rattle of chains. She wanted to feel complete, and she wanted Dahlia to break her._

_Once or twice, she felt Dahlia stop, felt the telltale shift as she raised her head, and knew that she was studying her. Not looking for anything in particular, she knew, just watching. Enjoying the sight of her – just Cara – prone and stained with all the mottled war-paint of pain and arousal, exposed and open and aching for her. Had their positions been reversed (and they would be), Cara had no doubt she would be doing the same. Committing to memory each moment, each laboured breath, each cry for more, each moan, breath, whimper. Each everything._

_And then, at long last, just when Cara was sure she couldn’t take another moment of Dahlia being so good and so far from enough, she was moving lower. Cara arched violently as lips replaced fingertips and hands slipped downwards to hold her fast by the hips, and felt her eyes rolling back at the combination of searing sensation and the pain that lambasted her as she reacted._

_“Spirits, Dahlia...” she groaned, struggling to keep her hips from bucking in Dahlia’s hands. “Where... how...” Dahlia’s tongue chose just that moment to dip into Cara’s naval, and she let out a strained yelp (one that caused her brutalised vocal chords to howl in protest). “Where did you...?”_

_Dahlia smiled against the lower plane of her stomach. “Do you truly believe you’re the only one with talents, Cara?”_

_Truth be told, she had. Cara was superior, and so of course she’d assumed that her talents outstripped any of Dahlia’s. But she wouldn’t let Dahlia know that, not now, not when a single displeasing remark could cause her to rethink what she was doing. That was a point to be made on another occasion, when it was Cara’s turn to torture Dahlia with these newly-discovered pleasures._

_“But... this?” she managed instead, casting her own self-indulgent pride to the side in deference to what Dahlia was doing. “This is...” She arched her back, writhing as Dahlia’s lips inched lower, ever lower, ever closer to where Cara could feel herself throbbing, but still not low enough. “...Dahlia... this...”_

_“This is no more or less than what our sisters do,” Dahlia pointed out, and a violent lurch jolted through Cara’s belly, cutting her off at the waist._

_Angry, flaming, she wondered if Dahlia had indulged in these things with some of her other sisters, whether she had been called on to perform these services on her mistresses, whether perhaps that was where she’d learned these so-called ‘talents’._

_The thought, the idea that Dahlia might have given herself to somebody else (even one of their mistresses) filled Cara with a heat that suddenly had nothing to do with the too-familiar mouth that was pressing butterfly kisses with soft deliberateness to the crease between thigh and hip._

_“Dahlia... if you... if this...” Her protests, unsurprisingly, went ignored, and so Cara summoned every ounce of strength she had to shape a command. “_ Stop _!”_

_She groaned as Dahlia did as she was told, ceasing her ministrations without preamble or hesitation, and Cara felt her body tense in protest against the loss of contact even as the rational part of her was proud of Dahlia for being so quick to obey, even now._

_“Is this...” Cara started, willing herself to sound stronger than she felt. “Do you... have... did you...”_

_It was harder than she’d expected, and she shuddered with the effort it took simply to form words. This was important. She couldn’t quite remember why, but it was. Dahlia needed to be hers, first and exclusively. She couldn’t bear to have that mouth on her if it had been on someone else first, if it had worshipped another body before Cara’s. It needed to be hers. Dahlia needed to be hers._

_“Have... you... ever...?”_

_Dahlia sighed, but didn’t speak, and Cara knew by her hesitation what the answer was._

_She tried to sit up, to stop this, to turn down what Dahlia was offering in spite of how desperately her body was crying out for it. She tried to move, to breathe, to speak, to tell Dahlia to back off, to_ demand _it; if she could not be hers exclusively, she would not be hers at all. It was important, it was so very important... but Cara was helpless now, pinned down by the flood of unfamiliar arousal as it washed over her, drowning her completely._

_“I am all for you, Cara,” Dahlia said, and there was genuine affection threaded like spun gold through the vain promise. “Whatever I have or have not done... I am yours. Never doubt that.”_

_Cara moaned. It wasn’t enough, not nearly, but it was beyond her power to deny her body what it needed._

_“Good,” she managed, though it wasn’t._

_With a teasing smirk, Dahlia returned her lips to where they had been. So close. So very close. Cara’s hips lifted again, and Dahlia chuckled hungrily against her heated flesh._

_“Do I have your permission...” she demanded between carefully-placed kisses, “...to continue?”_

_There was nothing in the world Cara could do to keep her back from arching, hips jerking up into Dahlia’s waiting mouth, and the sound that left her lips at that excruciating first contact was almost inhuman._

_Pressed flat against her, Dahlia smiled._

*

Somewhere along the line, Kahlan’s eyes had closed.

It helped, though not by much. She could still feel the pulsing of Cara’s heat beside her, could still feel the rhythm of both their bodies rocking in tandem beneath the strain of Cara’s imagined passion, could still feel the guilt surging and breaking within her as she continued to be held in place by forces beyond her control. She could feel it all, hated it all, and yet couldn’t tear herself away from any of it. Still, with her eyes closed, at least she didn’t have to see the way Cara’s eyes had rolled back once again, or the sweat that bathed her flushed skin, or the way her mouth fell open on each panted breath.

With her eyes closed, she could imagine that this wasn’t about sex. She could imagine that Cara’s whimpers had nothing to do with pleasure and everything to do with pain; she would never have wished further suffering on her companion, but she knew how to deal with pain, and she knew how to comfort Cara through torture. She knew, difficult as it was, how to hold Cara through the spasms and the violence and the barely-repressed screams. She knew all that, and she understood it.

But this? This was different, and Kahlan had no idea what in the world she was supposed to do. And so she kept her eyes closed, forced herself to imagine it was pain instead of pleasure... and then, finally, cursed aloud when it didn’t work.

Her own body wasn’t being particularly accommodating either, and it was taking far more effort than she would ever admit (least of all to Cara herself) to keep her own unfortunate responses under control. Physical intimacy – though it wasn’t so taboo for her now as it had once been, thanks to Richard – was still unfamiliar and frightening to a Confessor, and even the newly-discovered gap in her powers that allowed her to be with Richard had done little to assuage that deep-rooted discomfort that had been bred in her from birth.

They hadn’t had as much chance to explore each other and their newfound potential as they would have liked, still being on the road and in the company of Cara and Zedd, but what scant moments they’d had together had left Kahlan anxious. She cared for Richard, very deeply, and with an undeniable depth of intimacy... but she had also been raised all her life to believe that what they were now able to share was an impossibility, forever beyond her reach. As a result, she knew (and Richard, for all his obliviousness to many things, seemed to understand) that it would take a long time for her to surrender completely her deep-rooted fears of physicality, of intimacy, and of losing control.

It pained her, in a way she hadn’t expected, to be seeing Cara now, so free with her sexuality, when she herself was still so restrained with hers. And it made her body ache for the same.

Cara moaned again, heavier this time, and her teeth latched onto Kahlan’s pulse point; the unexpected sharpness of the sensation jolted Kahlan out of her reverie, and caused her to bite down hard on her lower lip. Almost of its own accord, Cara’s name rose up in her throat, lost to the barrier of her teeth.

“Yours...” Cara murmured, and then her tongue was soothing over the area she’d just marked; Kahlan knew she should stop it, but she couldn’t. “All of... all of me... _yours_.”

Though every fibre of her being told her to let go, to cast Cara away from her and return to staring at the wall, to get as far from the sex-swollen Mord-Sith as possible, Kahlan instead found herself tightening her grip, pulling Cara ever closer, drinking down her words and the rhythm of her body and the canting of her hips.

“She doesn’t deserve you.” She breathed the words into Cara’s ear, and couldn’t fight the proud smile that touched her lips when Cara’s entire body shivered at the sensation.

“Spirits...” she whimpered. “Spirits... more of that...”

“Cara,” Kahlan sighed (she’d been shooting for exasperation, but what came out was far too much like encouragement for her liking), and was rewarded with another luxuriant arch of the Mord-Sith’s hips.

“Dahlia...” she panted.

Despite herself, Kahlan felt her heart stop.

“You’ll regret this tomorrow,” she said, fighting to keep the sudden unexplainable hurt from touching her voice. “You’ll see.”

Cara, as oblivious and unaware as ever, cried out.

*

_In five years, Cara had not screamed once. Not since the day she’d first taken up the agiel and single-handedly slain the rats in her cell. Not since the day she’d cast aside the little girl she had once been and embraced the Mord-Sith she was destined to become. Even now, after four days’ worth of punishment, beaten and bleeding for a crime she hadn’t committed – chained to the ceiling, suspended naked over the blood pit, battered and brutalised until she could barely even remember her own name – she had remained strong._

_The screams, she knew, had been expected of her, perhaps even anticipated by her sadistic mistresses, but Cara was too stubborn to submit to that. It had given her a twisted kind of joy to sense the acute dissatisfaction touching her mistress’ faces as blow after blow had been met with near-silent defiance. Cara was powerful, much more so than most of her similarly-aged sisters, and it had been over five years since she had allowed herself the release of a powerless, unfettered scream._

_She wasn’t quite screaming now... but she was closer than she had been in years._

_Her mistress had tried for four days to make her cry out, with no success at all. Dahlia, meanwhile, had torn the shuttered wail from Cara’s throat with a single swipe of her tongue. If it didn’t feel so glorious, Cara would have been ashamed; she knew that the desperate sounds pouring from her were just signs of all the things Dahlia had been trying to tell her, evidence beyond doubt that Dahlia truly was every bit as powerful as Cara was, but she couldn’t bring herself to care about that. Not right now. Not as, even before the first guttural yelp had ended, Dahlia was already working on summoning another._

_“Spirits, Dahlia...” she groaned, not for the first time, then gasped at the feel of Dahlia smiling against her. “More...”_

_Dahlia actually laughed at that, the vibration of the bubbling sound against Cara’s most intimate parts causing a full-bodied shiver to tear its way through her._

_“If I gave you more every time you asked for it,” Dahlia murmured, lips shaping the words carefully around Cara’s swollen curves, “you would have been unconscious long before now. Or have you forgotten that you’re wounded?”_

_She had. She’d forgotten the bruises, the bleeding, the pain that was so close to rendering her unconscious. She had forgotten absolutely everything... everything... everything, except how incomprehensibly good Dahlia’s mouth felt when she was trying to speak and labour over her at the same time._

_“More...” she repeated, earning another humming chuckle against her centre. “Keep talking... Dahlia...”_

_“What?” Dahlia asked, pulling her head up in reflexive surprise, and Cara whimpered in protest at the loss of content._

_“No...” she whined, almost another cry in itself. “Not... I don’t...” She closed her eyes, balled her fists, bucked her hips. “Dahlia... talk to me. Talk... talk to me while... while you’re... while you...”_

_She couldn’t say the words, but it didn’t matter; Dahlia understood, and her jaw fell open in disbelief._

_“You want me to compose a sonnet with my head between your thighs?” she spluttered, hovering somewhere between disbelief and desire. “Honestly, Cara.”_

_“Dahlia...” Cara keened, realising a moment too late how dangerously close she was to actually begging. “Dahlia... I...”_

_Blessedly, Dahlia didn’t need much more prompting than that. The note of pleading that wrapped itself around Cara’s voice, rare to the point of nonexistence as it was from a Mord-Sith (and from Cara especially) seemed to have driven Dahlia’s hunger beyond her capacity to ignore it, and she returned to her previous task with renewed zeal, lips curled into a predatory smile as they descended once more upon their target._

_“Cara,” she murmured, and the sound of her name in itself was almost enough to drive Cara over the edge. “_ Cara _.”_

_“More,” she repeated, and this time it was an order._

_Dahlia (compliant even in the act of proving just how much power she truly wielded) obeyed, humming and whispering her name again and again and again until it was all Cara could hear, all she could think, and all she wanted. Her name falling from Dahlia’s lips as they pressed against her, her name on Dahlia’s tongue as it worked within her, her name shuddering through Dahlia’s body as it surrounded her. Her name,_ Cara _, in every part of Dahlia._

_She wanted to repeat her instruction, to demand more and more and more until there was nothing left for Dahlia to give, but her voice was gone, lost in a soundless scream, almost choking her with raw desperation and feverish desire. Instead, then, she settled for working and canting her hips. Once, twice, over and over, until even that seemingly simple self-inflicted movement was beyond her control._

_“Cara...” Dahlia breathed again, languidly drawing out each syllable, knowing exactly the effect it was having._

_Arching so violently that the still-battered parts of her body howled in protest, Cara felt her fingers clench into fists at her sides. With far more effort than she’d ever admit (to herself, much less to Dahlia), she reached upwards, taking hold of Dahlia by the base of her braid, gripping her as firmly as she could. There was no strength in her fingers, the dual effects of her injuries and the overwhelming heat of what she was feeling combined to make her weaker almost than she’d ever been before, but it was enough to generate the illusion that she was the one holding Dahlia in place. It was enough to remind Dahlia that Cara still held control._

_It wasn’t power, and neither of them truly believed that it was Cara’s barely-existent grasp keeping Dahlia where she was, but it was enough. A reminder to Dahlia that, despite everything, Cara was still superior. Not in this, not now, not while the silent screams were still pouring from that place within her that was Dahlia’s... but superior outright._

_Dahlia’s name was not on Cara’s lips, for all the delicious sensations she was igniting within her. No..._ her _name was on Dahlia’s. Again and again, and at her command. It was_ her _name that was forming those scintillating vibrations against her sex,_ her _name on_ Dahlia’s _lips. Dahlia may have had the power, but Cara was still superior._

_Her other hand, trembling under the throbbing strain of what Dahlia was generating within her, reached for an agiel._

*

When she fell apart, there was no name on Cara’s lips.

Kahlan, though she loathed herself for it, was thankful.

Whimpering (tiny, high-pitched sounds that were closer to vulnerability than anything Kahlan had ever heard in her), Cara clung to her as if she was the only thing in the world keeping her from falling to pieces, and it was almost more than Kahlan could do to keep from imagining that she truly was. Had the Mord-Sith allowed herself to be so utterly shattered by pain instead of pleasure, Kahlan might have allowed herself the indulgence of believing that she was all Cara needed. But not with this.

Cara was quivering around her, clinging and keening, as though her body were about to snap, nether regions pressed tightly against Kahlan’s, every last inch of her surging and pulsing; it was almost beyond Kahlan’s toleration, and the combination of unexpected hunger and humiliated guilt was enough to leave even the revered Mother Confessor breathless and shaken by her own confused despair.

It seemed like forever before Cara finished shuddering, and yet some small corner of Kahlan’s subconscious (the barely-existent corner that had not allowed itself to be overwhelmed by confusion) insisted on protesting that it wasn’t enough. And perhaps that corner, unwanted as it was, had a point; as Cara tumbled from her arms, slack and trembling and panting in hitched gasps, Kahlan felt a wave of unexplainable emptiness wash over her.

Though she would deny it to her last breath, her body had been far more eager to accept Cara’s attentions than her mind, and the void she felt without the other woman in her arms, pressing and squirming against her, was staggering.

“Cara,” she said, hating how tremulous she sounded.

A lazy smile was just touching the edges of Cara’s lips, unpractised and unprotected. So close to beautiful.

“Mmmm...” she sighed.

Kahlan grimaced. “You’re incorrigible.”

Cara’s smile only seemed to broaden at that accusation, as though she not only knew it, but was proud of it. “Mmmm.”

Pulling herself (more than a little shakily) to her feet, Kahlan dusted herself off. On the ground, Cara was still trying to catch her breath, and Kahlan idly wondered (with no small amount of unintentional malice) whether she would be feeling the after-effects of so much physical labour after so much trauma for some days to come. It would be no less than she deserved, that malicious part of her insisted, even as the rest of her ached.

Grudgingly settling herself on the edge of the bed, fighting to cast all thoughts of what she’d just witnessed from every part of her (much to her body’s frustration and her mind’s relief), Kahlan gazed down at Cara's still-twitching body, a heavy sigh tumbling unchecked from her lips.

“Cara,” she grumbled, more exasperated than she’d ever been in her entire life.

“Mmm...” Cara hummed again.

Kahlan groaned.

“If you’re still breathing when this is all over,” she muttered, “you and I are going to have a _very_ long talk.”


	12. Chapter 12

_It became a regular occurrence after that, and not just between the two of them._

_As Cara climbed through the ranks, she found herself suddenly surrounded by subordinates, willing and submissive girls who were happy to do anything she commanded them to. Being who she was, of course, she readily took advantage of their enthusiasm, and of their eagerness to please. By her early twenties, she was among the most experienced of all her similarly-ranked sisters._

_For what little it was worth, Dahlia retained a special place. Cara was unfathomably easy to satisfy, and it took very little real work from even the most nervous of trainees to feed her what she needed (supplication, she soon learned, was often a far greater source of satisfaction than fingers or tongues), but Dahlia’s familiarity, her intimate knowledge of all the things Cara liked, often added a sharper edge to her pleasure, and one than the others (however skilful) could never quite match._

_Cara and Dahlia knew each other, and that was the difference. And so, Cara allowed Dahlia to know her again and again and again._

_It was still about power, though. Cara had allowed Dahlia to dominate her (or come as close to it as possible while still clinging to the shreds of her superiority) just once. Just that first time, and never again. It had been a mark of acceptance, a gift of sorts in acknowledgement of Dahlia’s finally having cast off the shackles of her youth and finally finding the courage to grow up._

_After that, Cara reminded her repeatedly that_ she _had grown up first._

_It bothered her, though she’d never admit it, that Dahlia didn’t mind Cara’s almost desperate need to dominate. She accepted, without words, all the power play and superiority games and the countless other such efforts that Cara made in a bid at reminding them both of her merits. Something fundamental had changed in their friendship after that first time; for a long while afterwards, Cara had felt as though she’d surrendered a little of her strength to Dahlia in allowing her to dominate, and had feared she’d never be able to get it back._

_So, with every intimacy they shared thereafter, Cara doubled and tripled her efforts to remind Dahlia (and to reassure herself) that she was superior. She wielded the power, she wielded everything... and, so long as they were both breathing, she always would._

_Though Cara had been insistent that Dahlia didn’t need to prove herself, that her act of supplication the first time had been exactly that (an act, not a truth), Dahlia had proven herself nonetheless. She had proven herself skilled, (talented, even) and had proven herself to be intimately acquainted with Cara’s innermost self in a way that even Cara herself hadn’t been. More, much to the delight of Cara’s body, Dahlia managed to build upon that intimate familiarity with every recurrent encounter, taking her to new heights, new experiences, and new sensations each time... and, so much more important than those surface pleasures, she always knew when to submit._

_It bothered Cara, though she knew it shouldn’t have, that Dahlia knew how important it was that Cara always be the possessor, her relentless need to be on top. The way she knew her, the way she understood those things, the way she always surrendered at exactly the right moment... all those things combined to give Cara the unshakeable and irrepressible feeling that Dahlia was_ allowing _herself to be possessed, instead of truly submitting like she should have._

_Had it been anyone else, Cara would have gone to great lengths to ensure that true submission came, and came on her terms. With Dahlia, she was generous. She allowed the rebellion because it was Dahlia, because she was her friend, and because the little girl that had promised to protect her was still burning somewhere inside the chasm left in Cara’s chest. She was generous to Dahlia, not because Dahlia was generous to her in kind, but because she was her protector. She was generous to Dahlia because it was her duty to be._

_That generosity broke with an audible snap when the Lord Rahl took an interest._

_Cara had been taught, repeatedly, that there was no greater honour than being chosen to serve the Lord Rahl. She did not enjoy playing the compliant role, not even with her mistresses (who demanded it from her, as a point of duty, and took it by force as punishment when she refused). Cara was untameable, wild and unfettered... but the Lord Rahl was different. The Lord Rahl wasn’t another Mord-Sith, and he was so much more than an overblown mistress in white leather. The Lord Rahl demanded complete obedience from all his Mord-Sith, without exception, and Cara had been raised too long to worship him as the highest authority (higher even than the Creator herself) to ever allow her rebelliousness to extend to his bed._

_The first time he sampled her, Cara returned to her chambers ablaze with primal need. The Lord Rahl was skilled in every way, of course, but servicing him was about fulfilling his needs, not her own. She was a tool, that was all, and she knew more than enough about how arousing another’s supplication could be to give him exactly what he needed, and repeatedly. She satisfied him, and satisfied him well, playing that nauseatingly compliant role for hours without end... and, by the time she was dismissed, every inch of her was throbbing with an urgent desperation to reclaim her own authority._

_She did not need satisfaction; she needed power and possession and everything that Dahlia was so willing to surrender to her... and, this time, she needed to ensure that that surrender was genuine. This time, beyond all doubt, Dahlia would truly submit._

_“Take me,” she instructed, without preamble, the instant her gaze fell on Dahlia. “Now.”_

_Dahlia smiled. “Good evening to you, as well, Cara.”_

_Cara growled, rough-edged and dangerous; she was in no mood for chaste games, and in no mood to show patience._

_“I believe I told you to take me,” she snarled. “And I believe I said ‘now’, Dahlia.”_

_For a brief moment, Dahlia’s eyes clouded with concern; it was the kind of concern that could only have come from someone who knew Cara as intimately as Dahlia, who knew without having to ask that something was not right, that this was not the Cara she knew. Fortunately for her, she also knew Cara well enough not to voice her worries aloud, and for that Cara would spare her a trip to the Underworld._

_Regardless of Dahlia’s touching concern, Cara wanted what she wanted, and she had no intention of waiting for it. So, not giving Dahlia the chance to obey of her own accord, not wanting to see that flicker of_ permission _in her eyes, she threw herself on the other woman with the kind of possessed violence that was usually reserved for punishing young initiates._

_“What has gotten into you?” Dahlia managed, trying in vain to pull back from Cara’s fevered grip, even as Cara drove her down to her knees with force enough to do more than bruise. “Cara, you know I—”_

_“Shut up!” Cara barked, fingers working nimbly at the laces of her own leathers even as she held Dahlia roughly in place with her other hand; she could see by the way Dahlia’s eyes were already beginning to darken that the other woman was eagerly waiting for an opportunity to shed her clothing too, but Cara would not allow that._

_This wasn’t about sex, and it wasn’t about pleasure. It was about power._

_“Don’t talk,” she ordered, gripping Dahlia by the braid as soon as she had loosened her leather enough to grant the necessary access. “Just take me. Hard. Fast._ Now _.”_

_Ever compliant, and taking care to keep her eyes out of view, Dahlia did as she was told. Cara smiled, benevolence mingling with control as Dahlia descended on her, falling almost instantly into the rhythm that was more than familiar to them both by now._

_“Anything for you,” she breathed against the dampness of Cara’s waiting centre. “Anything.”_

_Cara groaned, almost losing her footing as Dahlia’s tongue laboured efficiently over its task._

_“I told you not to talk,” she growled, tightening her grip on Dahlia’s hair to emphasise the point, and tugging with ever-increasing ruthlessness until Dahlia really did have no choice but to submit. “_ Harder _.”_

_It took less than a minute for Dahlia to work her to completion; Cara made no sound at all as she shuddered through the spasms of her release, instead biting down on her lower lip until it was bleeding freely. She was still standing when she finished, in the middle of the room with no brace for support and no need for one, and she finally allowed herself to relinquish the death-grip she’d had on Dahlia’s braid with a rumbling hum of almost genuine approval._

_“Good,” she said, clipped and clinical. “Good, Dahlia.”_

_Dahlia chuckled weakly as she climbed to her feet, wiping her mouth and straightening her leathers with careful precision. When she was done, she studied Cara curiously, and rolled her eyes with a calculated disdain that was clearly intended to cover over something much darker._

_“Would you care to tell me what that was all about?” she asked softly._

_Because it was a request and not a demand, Cara did. “The Lord Rahl summoned me,” she explained. “To his bed.”_

*

Kahlan had been struck with horror by the savagery in Cara’s insistence that she be taken. She had seen, over the past few hours’ worth of re-experienced memories, too many of Cara’s couplings, with Dahlia and with others, and she’d certainly seen how unwilling Cara was to relinquish her control. Most, if not all of what Kahlan had been allowed to witness from her dissociated distance had been such a far cry from the first awkward intimacy that had so affected her, so much so that she almost couldn’t believe it was the same Cara.

This, though, had been far more extreme even than those. This had been a Cara possessed, forceful and violent, and almost to the exclusion of the unseen Dahlia’s own wishes; she had no way of knowing if Dahlia had offered up any protests, but she certainly knew enough to know that, even if she had, Cara wouldn’t have heeded them. For as long as she’d known Cara, Kahlan had also known that she took what she wanted, and that she often did so without bothering to wait for the other party to acquiesce to it... but this had been different even to her usual fervour. This, what she’d just borne witness to, was the most brutally Mord-Sith thing she’d ever seen in Cara... either on their travels together, or through the effects of this damned spell. It stunned her, and left her reeling.

“The Lord Rahl summoned me to his bed.”

The words came out of nowhere, and almost before Cara had even taken the time to catch her breath after her impromptu climax. There was no bitterness in the statement, no sorrow, not even any pride. There was simply a quiet acceptance, as though it was no more or less than the answer to a question. And perhaps (though Kahlan had no way of knowing) that was all it truly was. A statement of fact, not worth a moment’s more consideration than the time it took to voice it, and certainly not worth any more than a cursory nod in response.

Yet, to Kahlan, it struck with the force of a physical blow. She’d had no idea Cara had been intimate with Darken Rahl, and she’d certainly had no idea that it had happened like this. Not even a coupling at all, if the hollow void in Cara’s voice was anything to judge by. A ‘summoning’. An obligation. A duty.

“Cara,” she heard herself murmur, almost tearful, fingertips trailing without intent through the Mord-Sith’s increasingly-dishevelled hair. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

To her surprise, and unease, the ghost of a smile touched the corners of Cara’s lips, as though she’d just been told (or perhaps asked) something she had secretly wanted to hear. Kahlan could only wish it was her own sympathy, but she knew far better than to expect that, even if Cara had been able to hear her words. More likely, she was simply making Dahlia pointedly aware of the fact that she was still in control of herself, and of the situation.

“It was... pleasurable,” she said, though the assertion sounded hollow even across the distance of magic and nonexistent worlds. “it was a great honour.”

“You don’t mean that,” Kahlan said, almost pleading. “Cara, you don’t mean that. You wouldn’t have done what you just did if you truly thought—”

“No, Dahlia,” Cara went on, ignoring Kahlan’s hopelessness, and the smile on her lips flourished into something a little more sincere. “Of course he won’t summon you as well. You aren’t worthy of servicing the Lord Rahl. You’re worth less than I am.”

“Is that really what you think?” Kahlan demanded, tilting Cara’s chin upwards in a bid at forcing those sightless spell-whitened eyes to meet hers. “Truly, Cara?”

“There is a hierarchy here,” Cara said, as though she actually had heard the question. “Lord Rahl is at the top, with his most worthy Mord-Sith below him. That is where I am. I am worthy of his attentions, worthy of offering my talents to fulfil his needs. You, Dahlia...” 

For a moment, she hesitated, and Kahlan saw the barest flicker of sorrow just touching the very corners of her lips, almost invisible, and certainly not Mord-Sith; for all her insistences and bravado, the little girl Cara was still in there, and she didn’t want to hurt her friend.

“You,” Cara went on after a moment, and the phantom sorrow was gone as if it had never existed, “are beneath _me_. You fulfil _my_ needs.”

Nauseated, Kahlan pushed Cara away from her and scrambled quickly to her feet. She couldn’t even look at her, even as she heard the telltale ‘thunk’ of Cara losing her balance and toppling over. She couldn’t face her, couldn’t meet those spell-blind eyes, couldn’t see the hard set of her jaw or the careless way her fists would no doubt be clenching at her sides. She couldn’t.

This, apparently, was what Cara was so desperate to re-live. This was the life she had wanted so badly to remember. A life where rank and position – power and superiority – meant more to her than friendship, where commanding and possessing were the most important things in all the world, where being summoned by Darken Rahl to play the part of his personal prostitute was worth more than a kinship that had been forged and shaped since childhood. This was the Cara Zedd had known, the Cara that Kahlan’s own Cara had wanted her to see. A Cara that was Mord-Sith and nothing more.

“What happened to you?” Kahlan heard herself ask, almost a prayer. “What happened to make you believe this is an existence that’s worth torturing yourself for? What pain could you have been going through to want this? Cara, this isn’t you. I know you, I know what you’ve become, and you’re so much better than this. What could possibly cause you so much conflict, so much heartache, that you’d sooner revert to this... this _monster_... than embrace the woman you’ve become with us? Have we really become so alien to you now?”

“You are inferior,” Cara replied softly.

*

_“Do you really believe that?” Dahlia asked, very quietly._

_“Of course,” Cara replied dismissively. “Your technique surpasses mine, even I am willing to admit that... but Lord Rahl did not request yours. He requested mine.”_

_“And you think that you’re his only plaything?”_

_Cara laughed aloud at that; the notion was beyond absurd, even for Dahlia. “Of course not. But that is not the issue.” She allowed a fond smile to touch her lips, and cupped Dahlia’s cheek with feigned affection that was much too close to genuine. “You are special to me, Dahlia, never doubt that. But you are a subordinate, and you are inferior.”_

_“So you’ve been telling me all my life.”_

_“Because it’s the truth!” Cara roared, still on edge despite the pleasure she’d just received. “Because, as important as you are to me, you’ll never be as powerful as I am. Because it is true, Dahlia, and I am protecting you by making sure you know it.”_

_“No,” Dahlia said, eyebrows lifting; it wasn’t like her to be so outwardly defiant. “Because you cannot accept the possibility that somebody you once needed to protect may now be equal to you, in every way.”_

_Cara struck her across the face, the force of the blow rocking both their bodies. Dahlia’s head snapped back sharply, but she was relentless, and when she recovered, it was with a cutting smile._

_“I am willing to play your submissive, Cara,” she said, voice ringing clear and calm. “I know that you need your strength to survive. But you in turn must know that it’s no more than that – a role I’m playing, because I know it gives you satisfaction. I may not be the Lord Rahl’s new favourite, but that does not take away from my station, and it does not strip me of all that I am. You are mine, Cara, just as much as I am yours. And, should I ever storm in here as you did tonight... throw you to your knees, force your mouth on me, take my pleasure from you whether you wish to give it or not, demand that you give all of yourself to me... know that you will submit to me, just as I submit to you._ That _is the truth, Cara.”_

_Cara growled, feeling the tension inside of her tightening to a maddening level._

_“I submit to nobody but the Lord Rahl,” she ground out through gritted teeth, furious almost beyond the capacity to form words._

_“You are a fool,” Dahlia told her._

_Cara took her by the throat. “And you are my possession.”_

*

“Kahlan?”

The sound of her own name, and falling as it had done from lips that weren’t Cara’s, caught Kahlan so completely by surprise that she almost fell over.

The call was accompanied by a gentle, almost hesitant knock on the solid wooden door, and Kahlan swiftly recovered herself enough to cross the room and open it, unable to conceal the smile that lifted her spirit as well as her lips at the sight of Richard standing there.

“Thought you might be hungry,” he said, holding up a covered basket. “So I had the kitchens make you something...”

“Thank you,” she said, and meant it far more than the simple words could ever express. She took a small step backwards, pulling the door open slightly wider, wide enough for him to step through if he wanted to. “You want to come in?”

Nodding his acceptance, Richard stepped lightly into the room; Kahlan watched as his eyes (with all the lack of subtlety she’d come to expect from him) scouted the room for Cara, and softened into a laugh when he finally saw her on the floor.

“Even when she’s under one of his spells, she won’t let Zedd have his way,” he observed with a grin. “It’s a good thing he’s preoccupied by the evening meal, or he’d bring her out of it himself, just to lecture her about the consequences of not staying on the bed at all times while under the influence of a memory-altering spell.”

Kahlan tried to return his chuckle, but hers sounded weak even to her own ears. “I tried to keep her there,” she said, suddenly exhausted. “But she’s stubborn. Even when she’s like this, Richard, she’s so stubborn.”

“That sounds like Cara,” he said, still grinning, then promptly sobered as he noticed how clouded Kahlan’s expression had become. “What?”

“I’m worried,” she admitted, lowering her voice, though she wasn’t sure why; they both knew that Cara couldn’t hear them, and yet she felt strange speaking about her when she was right there. “I’m worried about the person she’ll be when she finally comes out of this.”

Richard shrugged. “Zedd said the spell only affects her memory,” he reminded her, placing his hands on her arms and rubbing up and down their length in a softly soothing rhythm. “Whatever she’s going through in her head, it’s not real. Whatever they’re putting her through, it’s not really happening to her. She’ll be fine, Kahlan.”

“It’s not that,” Kahlan told him. “It’s not the things that they did to her.” She squeezed her eyes shut, as if that futile gesture would somehow erase all trace of the screams and the sex and the superiority. “It’s the things she’s doing. It’s... it’s who she is. Who she was in that world. Richard, I don’t recognise her. I don’t know who this woman is, but she’s not the Cara I know. She’s not Cara.”

“No,” Richard said, frowning. “But isn’t that the point? She doesn’t want to be our Cara. She wants to know what she’s missing in that Cara. Isn’t that what the spell’s supposed to—”

“I know that!” Kahlan snapped, then sucked down a deep breath as he flinched away from her. “I’m sorry,” she said, forcing herself to soften. “It’s just... what if we lose her to this other Cara? What if, when she comes out, she’s lost everything she worked so hard to become with us?”

Richard sighed heavily. He crossed the room to where Cara lay sprawled on the floor, and studied her for a few long moments; Kahlan couldn’t explain the ocean of relief that surged up within her when Cara remained silent, but it was almost overpowering in its intensity. She felt, she supposed, almost as though Cara’s spell-hazed mumblings were for her ears only, as though, by letting Richard hear them, that would somehow have cheapened what Kahlan herself been allowed to witness. Cara was hers, and, though she loved Richard, she didn’t want him to have any part of this. It was theirs, and theirs alone.

Finally, when it became apparent that he wouldn’t see anything in Cara, he turned back to Kahlan. Moving to sit on the edge of the bed, and positioning himself with seeming deliberateness on the opposite side to the one Cara lay on (a subtle effort, Kahlan supposed, to shelter her from the woman who had caused so much upset), he wordlessly gestured for Kahlan to sit with him.

“If she does,” he said, choosing his words very carefully, when she finally joined him, “then we’ll teach her again. A hundred times if we need to. We’re not going to give up on her, Kahlan. Whatever she is in there, whatever they’re making her, it’s not who she is out here. She’s ours now, and she’s come too far for any of us to give up on her just because she’s a different person in a different world. And especially _you_. You mean more to her than any one of us, you know that; if she thought for a moment she’d disappointed you... if she thought you were troubled on her account...”

“...she’d probably laugh at me,” Kahlan deadpanned.

Richard snorted. “True. But... you know what I mean?”

“I do,” Kahlan affirmed, though the heavy sigh that fought to break free of her told another story. “Of course I do.”

“Good.” 

He leaned across, draping an arm across her shoulders and placing a tender kiss to her cheek. Though every fibre of Kahlan’s being told her to draw comfort from the touch, from his presence, from having someone who knew she was there and who cared for her like Richard did, from everything he was and everything he’d made her over the last two years of their lives... still, despite all those things, she found herself flinching.

“What?” he asked, gently and without judgment.

“Nothing,” she replied, a little too quickly, and knowing before the word had even escaped her that he’d see through it. “I just... I’m worried about her.”

“We all are,” he said, though she noted (with a sense of relief that confused her) that made no further efforts to touch her. “She’ll be all right, though. You know that. She’s too stubborn to let some spell, especially one of Zedd’s, change her forever.”

Unconvinced, Kahlan nodded.

“And, besides,” Richard went on, not willing to let her dwell on her anxieties even if she had shunned his attempts at comfort, “you don’t know what sort of person she’ll be when this is all finished. It’s only been a day, Kahlan. Not even that long, really. If Zedd knows what he’s talking about, there’s still a long way for her to go.”

That was true, though Kahlan didn’t want to admit it.

“Look,” Richard said, sensing her continued qualms, “I’m not saying it’s perfect. None of us know what’ll happen when this is over... but, whatever state she’s in, she’ll need you to be the Kahlan who supports her, the Kahlan she trusted to stay here with her, to watch over her when she’s at her most vulnerable.” His fingers flexed in his lap, and Kahlan could tell he was fighting to keep from reaching out again. “You’re allowed to doubt this, but don’t let it eat at you. If she comes out of this to find that you’ve lost faith in her... _you_ , one person who’s forgiven her for all of the worst things she’s ever done... even Dennee...”

Kahlan winced at that, but Richard pressed on with the determination that she so admired in him, not allowing her to dwell on the thoughts of what Cara had done to her sister.

“You’ve forgiven her everything, Kahlan,” he reminded her pointedly. “And she knows it. She knows what you’ve had to work through just to be able to _look_ at her, much less care about her like you do. She knows how much it’s cost you to trust her, to have _faith_ in her... and she knows how much that’s worth. If even _you_ lose faith in her now, what's going to stop her losing faith in herself?”

“Nothing,” Cara mumbled from where she lay on the floor.

Richard grinned. Cara twitched. Kahlan hated them both.

*

_Mistress Denna quirked an eyebrow. “Nothing?”_

_“You heard me,” Cara said, gritting her teeth._

_“I did,” Denna affirmed. “But I don’t believe it.”_

_“You don’t have to believe it,” Dahlia told her, eyes sparking in a way that Cara had never quite seen in her before. “You just have to accept it. You hold no authority here, Denna. Leave us.”_

_Denna bared her teeth, a tangible contrast to the tight-lipped tension of Cara’s clenched jaw, and shook her head. Her gaze, lazy and professional, flicked from Dahlia to Cara and back again, cold and calculating, as though they were little more than flies buzzing around her head, all noise and no threat._

_“You should be careful,” she purred, and Cara wasn’t sure at first which of the two of them she was addressing. “You may consider yourself invulnerable, Dahlia, but you aren’t.”_

_“Neither are you,” Dahlia reminded her, and Denna spat in her face; smiling carelessly, Dahlia wiped the moisture from her cheek, eyes alight with triumph. “And you, in turn, may see yourself as the Lord Rahl’s right hand, but that does not grant you the right to interfere in his affairs. Go.”_

_For a moment, it looked as though Denna was going to argue, even to lash out with a blow, but she didn’t. Cara was grateful; she had come up more than far enough in rank that she could’ve struck Denna into unconsciousness for daring to touch her property (and Dahlia_ was _her property), without receiving so much as a glance, much less a reprimand; Denna’s self-assured insistences that she was Lord Rahl’s right hand certainly held water, but, among her sisters, she still had etiquette to abide by, and Cara would have been within her right to strike even Mistress Denna had she laid a hand on Dahlia. She would have done it, too, but Denna was sensible and didn’t give her a reason._

_Eyes flashing with hatred, she instead settled for shooting them both a dangerous glare, and (as much to Cara’s surprise as it was to Dahlia’s bemusement) departed._

_“She doesn’t like you,” Cara observed unnecessarily when she was gone, and Dahlia smirked with self-satisfaction. “You should be careful whose mark you earn, Dahlia.”_

_“Denna won’t hurt me,” Dahlia said, sounding more confident than Cara had ever heard her; standing there now, she truly was a woman, completely, and Cara felt heat surging up in the pit of her stomach at the sight of her. “She isn’t foolish enough. She knows I can best her.”_

_“You lie,” Cara said, rolling her eyes at the absurdity of the assertion. “Denna may be gorged on her own self-importance, but she is still the Lord Rahl’s right hand. She is power.”_

_“She’s less than me,” Dahlia smiled. “I have bested her in combat, time and time again. That’s why she hates me.”_

_“You?” Cara laughed. “Bested Denna?”_

_Dahlia’s smirk didn’t fade as she nodded her affirmation, though there was something strangely soft behind her eyes. Moving slowly, almost cautiously, she reached out to caress Cara’s cheek; the fondness in her gaze, obvious even through the complacency, caused Cara’s stomach to lurch, and she didn’t know why._

_“You’re jealous,” Dahlia said; it wasn’t an accusation, merely a statement of fact._

_“I am not,” Cara replied, affronted. “I simply do not believe it, that’s all. You are easily bested. It is impossible that _you_ , who are bested by young girls, could ever best Denna.”_

_“Oh, Cara,” Dahlia sighed. “You see things so simply. Everything is a matter of rank and regiment with you. If you are superior to me, and Denna is superior to you, then I cannot best Denna. But the world is not so simple a place. Denna is predictable; I am not.”_

_“No,” Cara agreed, and felt herself melt into the familiar press of Dahlia’s lips on her own as the other woman leaned in to steal a kiss. “You are not predictable.”_

_Dahlia pulled back, and the ghost of affection in her face had hardened to flint by the time Cara was able to focus her eyes._

_“You are, though,” she said, sounding deathly serious; despite herself, Cara sought out the softness that had touched her gaze moments earlier, but it was gone. “Cara, I know you’re Lord Rahl’s favourite plaything, but that won’t last very much longer. You must be careful.”_

_“I am careful,” Cara snapped, feeling her blood rise in defiance. “I do not go around spreading false rumours, nor do I seek to rise above my station. Denna happened to see me emerging from Lord Rahl’s bedchamber, and assumed I sought to usurp her. Thus, she spreads her lies because she thinks it will discredit me. She knows how these things work as well as I do, that Lord Rahl’s favourite changes as the weather does... but she is envious.”_

_“She wishes to be his next favourite,” Dahlia guessed._

_“Yes,” Cara affirmed. “She wishes for him to choose her, and she is furious that he continues to favour me. And so she spreads her malicious rumours, convinces herself that I believe myself to be his _mate_ , or some similar foolishness, because she cannot bear the thought that I please him so well that he has not yet grown tired of me... that, for all her prowess, she lacks mine in this.”_

_Dahlia smiled again. “You see?” she said, as though Cara had somehow learned a valuable lesson. “It’s not black and white. The Lord Rahl should choose Denna, but he still chooses you. Things are not—”_

_“Things are what they are,” Cara snapped, cutting her off. “Do not try and revisit this, Dahlia. He will never choose you. Not ever.”_

_And suddenly, that cursed softness was back in Dahlia’s eyes, radiating outwards until it wrapped Cara up in its unexpected warmth and left her limp and limbless. Dahlia reached for her again, one arm snaking around her waist while the other took her by the chin and pulled her in for another kiss. Still tender, it lasted almost a whole minute, luxuriant and as close to loving as Cara would allow. It was beautiful._

_At last, Dahlia drew back, ignoring Cara’s attempts to catch her retreating lips with her teeth. Breath hot against Cara’s mouth, ever evading the nipping of Cara’s jaws, she shed a radiant smile. “You_ are _jealous.”_

_“I don’t want to share you,” Cara replied, eyelids fluttering despite her best efforts to still them. “It’s not the same.”_

_Bright-eyed, Dahlia beamed. “It is to me.”_

*

Richard was far more entertained by Cara’s mumblings than Kahlan felt he had any right to be. He listened with due attentiveness as she burbled out the life she was living, flinched almost imperceptibly at Denna’s name, and frowned in all the right places... but Kahlan could tell he wasn’t truly giving her words the seriousness they deserved, and his quickness to dismiss what he was seeing drove her to the edge of madness.

It made her angry, but, at the same time, filled her with a depth of relief so profound that it stole her breath. For all his flaws, Richard was not typically the kind of man who would ignore something that had so obviously upset his mate, and the ease with which he cast aside Cara’s words as little more than the delirious ramblings of a spell-stunned Mord-Sith made it readily apparent that he simply wasn’t capable of understanding this. He wasn’t being dismissive, and he certainly wasn’t trying to be calloused... he just couldn’t comprehend what was happening.

Part of Kahlan (a small part, but part nonetheless) wanted to explain, to make him see just how important this was, how monumental it was for them to be seeing such an unguarded side of their long-time companion, even if it was the wrong Cara. It was the same part of her that wanted to shake him, even as he smiled at some semiconscious shift in Cara’s demeanour, the part of her that ached to demand to know why he couldn’t see that this was wrong, that everything about her was wrong, that the Cara they both knew bore no resemblance to this soul-darkened Mord-Sith, this inhuman monster who would force a so-called friend onto her knees so that she might retain her status.

“It’s not her,” she heard herself murmur, feeling her eyes misting as she watched Cara clenching and unclenching her fists.

“No,” Richard agreed easily. “It’s not.”

Kahlan tore her gaze from Cara, ignoring the resumed mumblings that were falling once more from her lips (rambling insistences that jealousy was a weakness and that what she felt was simply possession), and fixed all her attention on Richard.

“Can’t you see how wrong this is?” she asked, almost frightened of what the answer would be. “How wrong _she_ is?”

“Kahlan,” Richard said, firm gentleness colouring his voice. “Of course she’s wrong. She’s not with us. She’s never met us. She’s a Mord-Sith, and that life is the only one she’s ever had. She doesn’t know you, and he hasn’t had a chance to let you make her more than what she is. She’s not done anything yet, because she’s had no reason to. Kahlan, I know it’s hard for you to sit through this and watch her be the person she once was... but you have to. And not just because Zedd told you to see the spell through to its end. You have to let her go through it. All of it.”

“What if she...” Kahlan trailed off, biting her lip. Her concerns sounded so futile next to Richard’s reasoning, even though she knew that her perspective was the rational one and his the voice of blind inexperience. “What if I don’t get to see that part? What if all the parts that make her Cara aren’t in that other world? What if this is all there is. What if it’s all _she_ is?”

“I don’t believe that,” Richard told her with such certainty that Kahlan almost let herself believe him. “Zedd wouldn’t have allowed it. He knew her, remember? He knew her, he spent time with her. He trusted her, at least as much as he trusts our Cara.”

_At least._

“You’re right,” Kahlan admitted, speaking very slowly and more to herself than to Richard. “He did. If there was a Cara he trusted less...”

She trailed off; she could scarcely bear to think the words, much less speak them aloud. If the more trustworthy – the more _human_ – Cara was truly the one who had done these things, who had been so obsessed with her own superiority, so infatuated with herself that she was blind to everything and everyone around her... well, Kahlan wasn’t entirely sure that was any more comforting than the alternative.

But then, hadn’t Cara herself admitted to having been among the most soulless of her Mord-Sith brethren? Hadn’t she told Kahlan, in almost exactly those words, that the absence of a figure like Dahlia in her youthful moments had made her the monster she had been when they’d first met? She had seemed so sure that, somehow, knowing how it felt to have a friend by her side through those ever-vital early years would make her more human. How brutal, Kahlan found herself wondering, had their Cara been, if _this_ was the gentler version?

“Zedd made a mistake,” she said with a sigh, succumbing despite herself to the doubts bubbling up within her. “You should be here with her, not me. You have more faith than I do. You can stay strong while she’s doing these things, saying these things, being this person that I don’t recognise. You could—”

“Doesn’t matter what I could do,” Richard told her quietly. “You don’t need to know her yet. You don’t need to recognise her while she’s under the spell. You just need to recognise her when she comes out of it. And... so much more important than that, Kahlan... _she_ needs to recognise _you_.”

Barely perceptibly, the ever-tightening pressure in Kahlan’s chest loosened. It wasn’t much, certainly not enough to quell all the countless doubts that were cutting off her airway and making it hard to breathe. Those countless ricocheting qualms, each one a direct contradiction to the last, still held the power... but, blanketed as she was just then by Richard’s eyes and his strength and his faith in her to do what she needed to do, however impossible the task may have seemed to her, they seemed just a little bit smaller. Not much, but enough. At least, for the time being.

“Whatever would I do without you?” she asked softly.

Richard smiled, and she finally allowed him to pull her into his arms.

“I ask myself the same question every day,” he said, pressing his lips to her temples, and she knew that he meant it. “I’m just returning the favour.”

She wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that, Richard allowing her to draw courage from his unwavering belief in her, while Kahlan absorbed every last drop of his warmth and his loyalty and his love. This, she reminded herself, was real. It was pure and it was true, and there were no doubts between them. The emotions that cascaded over her like a waterfall as she sat there, wrapped up in Richard’s arms and drowning in his love... they were simple, uncomplicated, and breathtakingly beautiful. All she needed to know, all she needed to understand, was that he loved her and she loved him in turn. She had no doubt, no unease, no fear. Richard gave her peace.

She told herself that it was just the worry, the underlying ever-present doubt that hadn’t been quite eradicated despite her best efforts, that was the reason why her thoughts (even now, with Richard, tangled up in him) were still on Cara. She told herself that it was her duty, her responsibility to take care of a woman who couldn’t take care of herself. She told herself a great many things, and tried to force her mind back to where it needed to be, to focus just for a few blessed moments on Richard, just Richard, only Richard... but Cara’s presence was unavoidable, and, somewhere deep inside, Kahlan knew it didn’t have anything at all to do with her ‘duty’.

Still, it made for a good enough explanation, and allowed her to close her mind against those things and see only Richard and his honey-warm eyes, even if it was just for a moment or two, even if it was just for the few precious heartbeats before her thoughts caught up with her again. Of course it was an excuse, and a futile one, but it gave her a moment of solace to believe it.

...and yet, when Cara erupted into a fit of wet-sounding, violent choking, Kahlan relished the excuse to tear herself away.


	13. Chapter 13

“Is she all right?”

Kahlan gritted her teeth, biting down the urge to explode; it wasn’t Richard’s fault, she reminded herself. He hadn’t caused this, and he was only asking the question because he was worried. Driving one of her daggers through him would not help Cara.

“I don’t know,” she said, keeping her jaw clenched.

She’d fallen to her knees the instant the noise had started, and had waited for it to subside like all of Cara’s spell-induced coughing fits had so far; even the worrying round of dry heaving (the closest she’d come thus far to actual choking) had worn off relatively quickly with no sign of any real damage having been caused. Even the screams – those haunting, soul-shattering screams that had seemed to go on forever, each one more painful than the last – had passed eventually.

But this wasn’t passing. And it was getting worse.

“Is this normal?”

Kahlan bit down on her tongue, hard enough that she could taste the bitter tang of blood, and used the hot metallic taste to focus herself. “I don’t _know_ , Richard.”

He was just worried, she reminded herself again. That was all; he was worried about Cara, and was expressing his concerns in the only way he knew how – by asking pointless and unhelpful questions. It wasn’t his fault that she didn’t know what to do, and it wasn’t his fault that, for every wasted second Kahlan flailed for a way to aid the ailing Mord-Sith, the volume of her gagging splutters increased until it really did sound as though they would end up killing her. It wasn’t his fault that Kahlan didn’t know what was going on, and it wasn’t his fault that she didn’t know what to do. As much as she wished it was, so that she might have someone to blame for this, it wasn’t Richard’s fault.

“Should I get Zedd?” he asked, voice shaking.

“No!” Kahlan shouted, then forced herself to calm down. “I don’t know. Just... let me... I need to figure out what’s wrong, that’s all. I just need to think. I just need to... spirits, Richard, let me _think_!”

Gently, she rolled Cara onto her side; for about half a second, the movement seemed to aggravate the choking, and Kahlan’s breath caught as Cara’s eyes rolled back and her jaw clenched and unclenched with almost force enough to break.

“Kahlan, she can’t breathe,” Richard said quietly.

“I know that!” Kahlan snarled, willing herself not to dismember the Seeker.

Struggling to think clearly, to drown out Richard’s babbling and the terror that was rising up in her chest, she did the only thing she could think of. She summoned all the strength she could muster at that moment (which, paralysed by fear as she was, wasn’t very much), drew back her fist, and pounded on Cara’s back as hard as she could.

The first attempt yielded little result, an outcome that was as unsurprising as it was disappointing, and so she tried a second time, and then a third. She kept going... again, harder, more... until, at long last, the wet choking noises shifted and changed into something that sounded (at least, to Kahlan’s admittedly untrained ears) a little less like death. Still, though, though Cara’s breathing didn’t seem to be any easier, nor did the choking stop, and Kahlan fought herself to keep from panicking.

“I’m here,” she said helplessly, pulling back for another dizzying slap, even as Cara’s body shook from the dual effects of the blows and her own violent gagging. “Cara, I’m here. Breathe for me. Dammit, Cara, stop this and _breathe_!”

“Kahlan...” Richard said, surprisingly urgent.

“Not now, Richard!” she hissed, in no mood for his unhelpful questions and flailing attempts at offering worthless advice.

“ _Kahlan_ ,” he repeated. “She’s not choking.”

Surprised to the point that she momentarily forgot the bone-chilling fear that ran through her veins like a second bloodstream, she turned to stare at him. He was deathly pale, eyes locked irremovably on Cara’s spasm-choked body, and there was a look of such nauseated horror on his face that Kahlan found herself feeling almost as worried about him as she was about Cara.

“Then what?” she demanded; he failed to answer immediately, flailing for a moment or two too long, and, though she knew he was just struggling to put his realisation into words, she lost what fraction of patience remained. “Richard!”

“She’s vomiting,” he managed, and his hands were shaking as hard as Kahlan’s own. “Or trying to. In the spell, maybe, I don’t—”

“No,” Kahlan insisted, punctuating the word with another forceful slap to Cara’s back. “She did that once before, in the spell. After she... when she was young. It was nothing. Just a bit of dry heaving, that’s all, didn’t even last a couple of minutes. She was _fine_ , Richard. She was fine!” She felt herself losing control, the panic surging up to devour her again, and she clung to Cara as if she could make her better simply by willing it to be so. “She’s not fine now. She’s not... she...”

“Kahlan,” Richard said with a calmness that she knew he wasn’t truly feeling, and a sense of resigned certainty that she knew he was. “She’s trying to vomit. You need to help her.”

“I can’t,” Kahlan managed, horrified beyond her capacity to express it. Her eyes, torn between the man who seemed so certain of what he was saying and the woman who was living it, jerked back and forth between the two as if they’d been shaken loose from her head. “I _can’t_ , Richard. By the Creator, I _can’t_.”

The growl that escaped Richard’s lips was almost as primal as anything Kahlan had heard from Cara; she knew it was simply the heat of the moment, the necessity of what had to be done, but that did little to stop her being startled – almost frightened – by it.

“Then get out of the way,” he instructed her, voice weak but determined, “and let me.”

Kahlan didn’t move, and Richard didn’t wait.

He leaped off the bed, shoving her unceremoniously out of the way so he could take Cara into his own arms; dazed, Kahlan hit the floor, breathless with the force of the impact and watched through her fingers as he brought a still-trembling hand up to Cara’s gaping mouth. She couldn’t watch, but she couldn’t look away either as Richard did what needed to be done in spite of her, all force and necessary sharpness, and the sound that cut through the air as Cara surrendered (violent, brutal, explosive... all Mord-Sith, even now) was almost louder than anything she’d ever heard in her life.

Watching from a dissociated distance, Kahlan had never felt so pathetic.

*

_Cara had always prided herself on her self-control._

_Occasionally, she allowed her temper or her carnal urges to overpower her restraint, in particular after a long fight, but, even then, the lack of control was in itself controlled. The blows she delivered on whatever hapless underlings happened to be in the way when she lost her temper, the way she would command whoever was in reach to pleasure her simply because she wanted it, even the way she allowed the flaming heat of either (and, more often than not, both) to burn in her... she controlled all of those things, even if she could not control the impulses themselves. When she could not control her spirit, at the very least, she could always control her body._

_She could not control what was happening now._

_Mord-Sith were strong; illnesses, though uncommon, were not unheard of... but, when they did take it upon themselves to strike, they were always overcome. Always, and without fail. Cara herself had been unwell once or twice, but not since she was a child had she allowed it to interfere with her duties. Dahlia, she knew, had been ill on several occasions, but even she had fought through whatever discomfort it shaped itself as and carried on as though there was nothing wrong at all. Cara had never before seen an illness that was crippling enough to take down a full-fledged Mord-Sith at all, much less one capable of rendering them without even the least control over their bodies._

_Whatever this was, she could tell it was no common ailment._

_She had intended to ride it out alone, to suffer as silently as possible and then return to her routine before anyone knew; if the last few minutes’ suffrage were anything to judge by, however, her traitorous body had other plans for her. Mord-Sith did not surrender to their bodies’ demands, and Cara had hoped to keep her lapse into unforgivable weakness a secret for the rest of her days. But, as with everything else in her life on that cursed morning, even that faint hope was outside her control._

_“Cara?”_

_Groaning, Cara closed her eyes. The last thing she needed just then, reduced as she was, was Dahlia fussing over her._

_“Leave me alone.”_

_It didn’t surprise her in the least that Dahlia refused to obey, and another violent spasm lurched through her as she felt the familiar warmth of the other woman’s body pressing against her back. Soft words were murmured in her ear (questions or offers of comfort, Cara didn’t know and didn’t care), and strong leather-shrouded hands rested on her back with surprising gentleness._

_A low growl escaped Cara’s throat at the contact, and that was all the lapse her body needed to rebel once more; almost before she realised what was happening, she found herself forced to brace once more against the wall and watch from a dissociated distance as the contents of her stomach made another humiliating reappearance._

_“Cara,” Dahlia managed, unable to keep the concern from touching her voice, even as she allowed her hands to caress soothing circles across the spasm-choked muscles of Cara’s back. “Cara, what is this?”_

_Willing her away, Cara tightened her fists and pounded the unyielding wall in rhythm with the unending scream of her throat and her stomach and every hated inch of her._

_“Leave me alone,” she repeated, as soon as the barrage stopped, speaking through teeth so tightly clenched that it actually hurt; already, her guts were churning again, and she knew another resurgence was not too far off. “Go away, Dahlia. That’s an order.”_

_“You don’t get to give me orders,” Dahlia told her, punctuating the statement with a mirthless chuckle. “I am beyond your authority.”_

_Cara groaned again, too drained to fight her and hating that she couldn’t even summon strength enough to muster a half-hearted protest. “Then it is a request,” she sighed. “I don’t want you to see me like this.”_

_Dahlia leaned in, and suddenly it was her chest as well as her hands moving in delirious rhythm against her back; the contact, so much more than compassion, settled Cara’s stomach for a heartbeat or two._

_“Cara,” Dahlia said, affectionate and authoritative at the same time, and Cara leaned back against the push of warm breasts against her shoulders. “I have seen all of you. I have seen parts of you that even the Lord Rahl never will. I have known you all my life, and all of yours as well. You have taken me, and been taken by me, with and without my consent. You have struck me down to vent your mindless temper, and you have used me to reinforce your own sense of self-worth. You have done unspeakable things to me, Cara, and I have survived them all. This is nothing.”_

_With more effort than she would ever admit to anyone (even Dahlia), Cara turned to face her. Almost instantly, she found herself doubling over again, retching violently. Her legs went out from under her, and she silently cursed how much unwanted comfort she was suddenly forced to draw from the familiar sensation of Dahlia’s arms around her, supporting her, keeping her from falling._

_Gently, and yet with enough strength that Cara could feel it was driven by something more than foolish sentiment, Dahlia helped her to her knees. She held her through the worst of it, tight and yielding and everything in between, as Cara vomited yet again, and then a third time; for her part, even if she could have given voice to the words, Cara didn’t even think to ask how Dahlia knew precisely how to ease the ceaseless rolling of her stomach without the least effort. All she could do, all she wanted to do (and she hated herself all the more for wanting it) was embrace the helpless relief she felt as Dahlia’s entire being surrounded her from all sides, keeping her close and conscious as she rode out the near-endless tumult._

_“I have never seen you like this before,” Dahlia murmured when Cara was finally done._

_Cara rested her sweat-drenched brow against the cool leather of Dahlia’s shoulder. “I have never felt like this before.”_

_Slowly, and with obvious reluctance, Dahlia pulled back; it wasn’t much, just far enough to study the lines of nauseous fatigue that painted Cara’s features, but it was enough for Cara to unwittingly mourn the loss of contact._

_“You look well.”_

_“Now is not the time for your pitiful attempts at humour,” Cara grumbled, wishing she had enough left in her to glare. “I am not amused, Dahlia.”_

_“I’m serious,” Dahlia said, and suddenly she was frowning._

_Taking great care not to further upset her fragile stomach, Cara straightened up; now that her body had seemingly finished its efforts to turn itself inside-out, at least for the time being, she couldn’t help acknowledging some grain of truth to Dahlia’s observation. For all the brutality of what she had just experienced, she felt worlds better now that it had passed. Still exhausted beyond her ability to explain it, and still with that ever-present churning deep within her belly, threatening to overturn again at any moment... but not_ unwell _. At least, not exactly._

_Dahlia was still studying her, still frowning, and the perplexity on her face caused Cara’s patience to break. “What?”_

_“Nothing,” Dahlia said, suddenly uncharacteristically subdued. “Whatever it is, I’m sure it will pass. You’ll be fine in no time.”_

_“And you,” Cara affirmed, feeling her strength return, “will tell nobody of this. This... incident... did not happen.”_

_Dahlia looked uncomfortable. “As you wish.”_

*

“How is she?”

Richard smiled, though Kahlan could tell it was just for her benefit and bore no resemblance whatsoever to his true feelings. Apparently, his diagnosis had been accurate (if unpleasant), and Cara had calmed down considerably after the Seeker’s graphically successful efforts to help her empty her guts. Kahlan, for her part, was far more occupied than she’d care to admit by the struggle to keep herself from following Cara’s example.

“She’s all right,” Richard told her gently, even as he laboured with characteristic diligence at cleaning up the mess he’d helped Cara to make. “She’s settled down now. I told you, she just needed to...”

He trailed off, coughing uncomfortably, and redoubled his efforts on the floor.

Kahlan sighed, feeling wretched. “I’m sorry, Richard.”

“You don’t need to apologise,” he said, cutting her off with a dismissive wave that, though she knew it was supposed to comfort her, ultimately just made her feel even worse. He was so _Richard_ , so accepting of others’ shortcomings without question; why couldn’t he be as furious with her as she was with herself? Why couldn’t he understand that she needed to be at fault for this?

“Yes, I do,” she told him, hoping he’d see the truth of it and cast aside his forgiving nature for once in his life. “I’m the one who’s supposed to be taking care of her. I’m the one who’s supposed to know what to do when things like this happen. I’m the one Zedd specifically asked to keep watch over her _because_ things like this would happen.” She closed her eyes, unable to face either of them. “I was supposed to stop her hurting herself. Instead, I panicked. When it all came down, I didn’t know what to do, and you...”

“Kahlan...” Richard started, but she didn’t let him get any further.

“If you hadn’t been here,” she informed him, eyes snapping open to glare at him, “she might’ve died. She could have _died_ , Richard, all because I panicked.”

Richard mirrored her sigh, but didn’t say anything until he was finished with his task. When it was done, he moved back to where Cara still lay, pale and clammy in the wake of what had happened, and carefully eased her up into a sitting position. When it became apparent that she had no intention of protesting the shift or of starting to vomit again, he propped her up against the nearest wall.

“She’s fine, Kahlan,” he said softly, lingering to push the sweat-soaked hair out of Cara’s eyes with a depth of affection that squeezed at Kahlan’s heart. “She’s fine.”

“And, if you hadn’t been here?” she demanded, taking some small amount of satisfaction in the fact that he couldn’t answer.

When Richard finally deemed Cara recovered enough to be left alone (at least, for the time being), and took it upon himself to cross over to Kahlan’s side, she didn’t even bother trying to hide the way she flinched away from his approach. He acknowledged it with a shrug, seeming to have expected it, and settled instead for sitting on the bed beside her, quiet and unobtrusive.

“You’re not helpless,” he said to her, every bit as compassionately as he would have if she’d welcomed him with open arms. “You’re distracted. Whatever you say about all this, however much you insist you don’t recognise her, you still care for her.”

“That’s not an excuse,” Kahlan snapped irritably.

“No, it’s not,” he agreed. “It’s an explanation. You care about her. Seeing her suffer like that... knowing that you’ve got to be the one who makes her suffer like that, even when it’s her own body that’s begging you for it... no-one could blame you for not being able to do that, Kahlan. She’s your friend. It’s only natural that you’d have trouble forcing her to—” He broke off, visibly wincing. “...doing that to her.”

Kahlan exhaled, letting her gaze drift to where Cara sat. She longed to go to her, to wrap her up in an embrace and tell her again and again just how sorry she was, how she hadn’t meant any of the things she’d said, how she’d never intended to panic, how she would’ve given anything to have known what to do without Richard’s intervention. She longed to say so much more, to forget her qualms, her doubts, to forget everything... but she was afraid to go near her. Even now, with the danger passed, she was afraid.

“I do care about her,” she heard herself murmur, echoing Richard’s quiet remark. “She’s become so precious to me, Richard. So much. And I don’t know how to...”

“I know,” he smiled. “And so does she.”

Where she sat, Cara shifted, expression flickering before finally settling on a moody frown. “You’re too sentimental.”

Richard grinned, as Kahlan had known he would.

“I think I like her like this,” he said teasingly, and Kahlan rolled her eyes at him; it felt more wonderful than she’d ever admit to him. “She’s so much more agreeable.”

*

_“It’s not sentiment, Cara.”_

_Cara folded her arms; she was in no mood to deal with this now. “What else would you call it?” she demanded, voice rich with disdain. “You come to me, sporting bruises, claiming you earned them fighting for my honour, and expect me to prostrate myself in gratitude?”_

_“It had to be done,” Dahlia replied simply, though Cara could see that cursed softness in her eyes again._

_Dahlia could be ferocious when she wanted to be, but never when she looked at Cara. It was pathetically weak, bordering on humiliatingly so, and yet (despite the vociferous protestations of her rational mind) Cara could never quite bring herself to mind._

_“Denna needs to learn to shut up,” Dahlia went on._

_“Denna does not concern me.” Cara shrugged. “Let her say what she wants. It will not change anything, and it will not make the Lord Rahl desire her.”_

_Dahlia sighed, tangibly frustrated. Cara could see that there was something far deeper here than yet another deliberate slight from Denna, but she couldn’t figure out what it was. It took very little to rattle Dahlia, but she was becoming more easily-affected than usual, and Cara was at a loss to understand why. Had Denna, of all people, truly got so far under her skin?_

_“This is serious,” Dahlia told her, “and you, Cara, must learn to see it that way as well. Denna wields power, and if her malicious rumours spread...” She trailed off, and Cara rolled her eyes. “Cara, it’s very important that you protect yourself.”_

_“From what?” Cara laughed. “Denna? Her words mean nothing. Everybody knows she’s just bitter and spiteful. She is jealous, Dahlia, nothing more, and there is not a soul in the temple who does not know that.”_

_Dahlia wrung her hands, looking more annoyed than Cara had seen her in a very long time; for a moment, she considered asking what was truly bothering her (because it could not possibly be something so simple as another moment in a never-ending stream of malice from Mistress Denna), but she knew that making such a request was beneath her station, and so decided to demand it instead._

_“What, Dahlia? Why are you suddenly so concerned? Why are you suddenly so affected by Denna?_ Denna _, of all people. You yourself claim to have bested her many times, and it is hardly as if she’s never attempted this before. What is this really about, Dahlia?”_

_“Cara.” Dahlia exhaled, looking conflicted and deeply troubled._

_For a long time, she said nothing, seeming to wage some kind of war deep within herself, and Cara was just about to take her by the throat and order her to speak her mind or find herself deprived of the ability to do so at all, when she seemed at long last to find her voice. The words, however, Cara found far from enlightening._

_“How are you feeling?” Dahlia asked, and the change of subject caught Cara so much by surprise that she almost forgot her prior anger. “Your... illness. How have you been feeling?”_

_“That’s no concern of yours,” Cara said, realising a moment too late that she had blurted the insistence out far too quickly to be convincing._

_She didn’t want Dahlia to know that she had taken to spending in excess of an hour every morning (without fail, much to her humiliation) in the grip of the same irrepressible sickness that had overpowered her so completely some days earlier. She did not want Dahlia to worry, to fear for her health, to feel as though she needed to cover over her absences on those mornings where she simply could not stop the maelstrom in time to attend to her duties._

_She would be fine, she knew that much. She just needed a few more days to regain control, that was all. And Dahlia did not need to know._

_“Oh, Cara...” Dahlia sighed, as if reading her thoughts. “Why must you be such a fool?”_

_“Watch your tongue,” Cara told her, dark and dangerous. “Or I shall have it cut out.”_

_Dahlia twitched. “If my tongue had been enough for you in the first place,” she remarked acidly, “you would not be in this situation now.”_

_There was nothing in the world that could have kept Cara from lunging at Dahlia’s throat then, and she did so with all the frustrated futility that had been building up from the very first moment that her body had betrayed her. She could not control the nausea, the sickness that tore through her on a daily (almost hourly) basis, could not keep herself from falling to her knees time and time again in helpless submission to her stomach’s rebellion, could not do anything about the weakness it brought out in her, or the way it brought her inexplicably close to tears... but she could tear an answer from Dahlia’s lips._

_“Explain yourself,” she snarled, gloved fingers tightening over Dahlia’s throat. “Now. Or I will ensure you are never able to explain anything to anyone for the rest of your worthless life. Talk, Dahlia.”_

_Dahlia coughed, but held herself rigid. She met Cara’s eyes, defiance mingling with something suspiciously similar to pity, and the sight of it only caused Cara to further tighten the vicelike grip she had on the other woman’s windpipe._

_“You are such an idiot,” Dahlia murmured, and the softness in her voice had nothing to do with the way Cara was cutting off her air passage._

_“Dahlia,” Cara warned, then growled when Dahlia raised a hand to hold her fast by the wrist. “Do not toy with me.”_

_“I’m not,” Dahlia said._

_Her hand, where she’d placed it, tugged at Cara’s with infuriating gentleness until Cara acquiesced (almost against her own will, just like every other reaction Dahlia evoked in her) to fall back down to her side; Cara acknowledged the shift in power with a glare, a silent demand that the other woman continue speaking if she valued her life._

_“I’m not toying with you,” Dahlia repeated throatily. “But if you’re too much of a fool to know the first thing about your own body, I can’t help you.”_

_“You are stepping on dangerous ground, Dahlia,” Cara snarled, balling her fists with white-knuckle intensity where they’d fallen to her sides. “Even by your standards.”_

_“I am doing what I must,” Dahlia replied, and Cara’s eyes were drawn again to the bruises and the traces of blood that coloured the side of her face. “Since you refuse to see what’s under your nose,” she went on, ignoring the unabashed way Cara was staring, “I am left to pick up the pieces of your self-imposed folly.”_

_Having made her point, she turned on her heel and departed, leaving Cara alone in the too-cold corridor, to shout after her (because she would never allow anyone, least of all Dahlia, to get the last word)—_

*

“—you have taken leave of your senses!”

“Probably,” Richard affirmed, not missing a beat, and Kahlan gritted her teeth to keep from tossing one of her daggers at him.

She knew him well enough to know that the levity was a tool, something he was using in a desperate bid at getting her to forget her own inadequacies and return to the task at hand. He had her best interests at heart, and Cara’s as well, and she knew that... but it didn’t stop her feeling angry at the way he dismissed the seriousness of what Cara was going through, or the chaos that she herself had caused. She wanted him to be ruthless, to be hard on her, to be vindictive. She wanted him to be the Lord Rahl that Cara had always said he needed to be, because the last thing Kahlan needed from him right now was forgiveness.

“Richard...” she said, venting her temper.

“Kahlan,” he returned, hearing all of those words without her having to utter a single one.

He placed a steadying hand on her shoulder, tilting his head towards where Cara sat (still looking sickly, but for the most part back to normal) right where he’d left her.

“Look at her,” Richard implored. “She’s all right. It’s over. She’s just fine now.”

“And if you leave?” she asked, hating that she sounded like a lost child. “And it happens again?”

“Then you’ll know how to handle it,” he said simply, and she let her head fall back to slam in voiceless frustration against the wall. “Kahlan, this is as much for you as it is for her.”

She quirked an eyebrow at that, unable to keep the surprise from touching her features despite her best efforts to hide it. She knew, of course, that Richard had a peculiar tendency to see things others didn’t, that it was part of his nature as Seeker to see the truth in matters that others would pass over without a second thought, but knowing the fact didn’t make it any less unnerving on those occasions when he displayed a rare moment of insight. And, she had to admit, all the more so when she herself was involved.

“What do you mean?” she demanded, a little guarded and a lot cautious.

He shrugged, that distinctly _Richard_ shrug that told her what he was seeing was so blindingly obvious to him that he couldn’t fathom the possibility that everyone within a hundred leagues might not be seeing it too. Silence fell between them for some time, and she knew he was trying very hard to put his thoughts into words; it was difficult for him, she knew, but that didn’t ease her impatience any.

As much as she would’ve liked to choke an answer out of him (as well as she knew it wouldn’t have helped either of them), she didn’t interrupt his musings, instead sitting quietly with her eyes on Cara. Cara, in turn, did little more than keep breathing, but that was enough for Kahlan after the scare she’d just had; in almost no time at all, she found herself hypnotised by the rhythmic rise and fall of the Mord-Sith’s chest.

“She’s doing this for you,” Richard said, at long last.

“I know that,” Kahlan replied, annoyed. “She told me.”

“Kahlan,” he said patiently. “It’s not about the spell.”

“It’s about her memories,” Kahlan snapped. “I know all this, Richard. She wants to remember the things that the other Cara knew. She wants to know how it felt to have a friend who was broken with her, to have someone she was intimate with on the level that this Cara was intimate with Dahlia. She wants to express herself, and she thinks this other Cara was better at it than she was. She wants to understand, Richard. She’s trying to under—”

“No,” Richard said, cutting her off; the word was a statement of fact, no more and no less. “She’s giving herself to you.”

It was the last thing she’d expected to hear, and the impact of it struck her like a blow; for some time, Kahlan could only stare slack-jawed at Richard, as if he’d just accused her of growing an extra head, or accused Cara of holding a secret flame for one of Zedd’s oft-lamented chickens. The idea of Cara giving herself to anyone, in any manner other than in body (and Kahlan blushed at the memory of what had happened when she’d been forced to witness that particular act), was utterly ludicrous; what was he thinking?

“She’s not just sharing her feelings with you,” Richard went on, eyes warm as he watched her. “She’s sharing her life. A life she doesn’t remember, a life she never even lived. A life that was taken away from her. Whatever she’s trying to find in that other Cara’s life, whatever she thinks this Dahlia might have given her... she doesn’t just want it for herself. She wants you right there with her. She wants you to see it too.”

“How do you—”

“I don’t know,” he said sharply, as though the knowledge were a burden that was far beyond what she could see of it. “I just do.”

“But why?” Kahlan asked. “Why would she...”

“Because she cares,” he replied, like it was the most obvious thing in all the world. “Because she can’t say it herself, and it’s killing her. Because she’s _Cara_ , and nothing she ever does makes sense.”

Kahlan couldn’t suppress a genuine laugh, despite her best efforts, and it felt good.

“Maybe she’s right,” she said, a little more sadly than she intended. “Maybe we really have taken leave of our senses.”

“I think we have,” Richard agreed, too brightly.

On the floor, Cara’s head snapped forcefully back, rocked by what Kahlan had come to recognise by now as a blow.

“Cara?”

Kahlan was already on her knees beside the twitching Mord-Sith, the reflexive need to protect Cara overwhelming even the lingering tremors of fear left over from the previous incident. Not thinking about that, not thinking about anything, she took Cara’s face in her hands, drawing those sightless white eyes toward her own.

“Cara,” she repeated, and suddenly there was nobody but the two of them in all the world. “Cara, it’s all right.”

A low groan escaped Cara, but she remained silent other than that. Kahlan gripped her more tightly, ghosting a kiss across her damp forehead, murmuring endearments and promises and offers of comfort; she knew that there was nothing she could do, just as well as she knew the brutal details of what was going on. She knew that her futile reassurances would do nothing to ease the in-spell Cara’s suffrage, but she couldn’t stop herself trying anyway.

“It’s okay,” she soothed. “You’ve had worse.”

“I’ve had worse...” Cara mumbled obediently.

“That’s right,” Kahlan told her, laughing through the tears that pricked behind her eyes and threatened to spill. “That’s right.”

“You can’t touch me,” Cara babbled, smirking.

Kahlan smiled proudly, allowing herself to believe (though she knew it to be a lie) that it was the effect of her words bolstering Cara’s strength; it was less painful than the reality, what she knew to be true, that Cara was just that self-assured and just that ruthless. Still, she held her, and still she clung to the belief that she was helping, because it was all she had left.

“That’s right,” she whispered, lips feverish as they retraced the path across Cara’s brow. “They can’t touch you. You’re Cara.”

It would be some minutes before she realised that Richard had taken that moment as an opportunity to slip unnoticed from the room.

*

_“You can’t touch me.”_

_Denna smiled; it was a smile laced with ice and fire, a cruel and bitter smile that had become widely recognised as distinctly Denna. “You can’t imagine what I can do.”_

_It was Cara’s own fault, the situation she was in now. She’d known, as had the entire temple, that Denna was displeased (more so even than she usually was), and she knew better than anyone else why that was. However badly bruise-kissed Dahlia was, Denna was a thousand times more so; looking at her now, every inch of her porcelain skin mottled and clashing, Cara finally began to believe Dahlia’s insistences that she was able to best Denna in combat. Denna was beaten and battered, flagellated and furious, humiliated by a subordinate for the sake of Cara’s honour (and they both knew that Denna hardly needed another reason to hate Cara); it had only been a matter of time before she took her ire to its source... and Cara, arrogant as she was, had walked headfirst into it._

_“Nobody is afraid of you,” she said, ignoring the ripples of unease that boiled up within her. “Least of all me. Everyone knows you’re nothing but talk. All mouth and no action.”_

_“If that were the case,” Denna said bitingly, lips curving dangerously at the edges, “I would be in your position now.”_

_“And you would be happier for it,” Cara shot back._

_Denna lashed out again, catching the side of Cara’s face with an effortless strike. Cara didn’t flinch, but the weight of the blow caused her stomach to lurch precariously._ Not now _, she willed it (commanded it, pleaded with it)._ You may betray me every day for the rest of my life, but I will not let you betray me now. __

_“What’s the matter, Cara?” Denna mocked, cocking her hips; it was obvious from the smug grin that touched her face that she’d caught the flicker of nauseous discomfort, however well Cara had tried to hide it. “Have you really grown so soft in the Lord Rahl’s bed?”_

_“Have you,” Cara retorted, “really grown so weakened by your jealousy that you can’t even deliver a respectable blow?”_

_It was a pathetic effort, and Denna knew it as well as Cara did; the other woman’s eyes sharpened distinctly as Cara tried a little too hard to be subtle in catching her breath, tasting the too-familiar acid as it rose up in the back of her throat._

__Not now. __

_They held each other’s gaze for just a heartbeat, Denna cold and calculating and Cara fighting with almost more strength than she had to keep from pitching forward right then and there. And then, because she was nothing if not a quick study in the school of her opponents’ weaknesses, Denna lashed out a second time, catlike in grace and snakelike in precision, punching Cara square in the gut with staggering force._

_That was one thing that could be said for Denna, Cara thought as she doubled over. She always knew exactly where to strike; it was, she knew, one of the main reasons why Darken Rahl kept her so close to his side. Denna’s prowess in reading her enemies was second to none, and it angered Cara far more than it should have done to find herself on the receiving end of it, even as she swiftly found her attention occupied by far more pressing matters._

_“Honestly, Cara...” Denna purred, and Cara could hear the satisfaction in her voice even over the sound of her own violent retching; Denna was laughing at her, and it fuelled her anger. “What would the Lord Rahl think if he saw you now?”_

_Cara didn’t wait until she’d recovered; still gagging roughly, she put every ounce of strength she possessed into ignoring the way her stomach was screaming in protest and lunging at Denna. Blinded by anger and pain, sick and heaving, she powered into the other woman with all the focused energy of a lightning bolt. Her fingers were already tightening over her agiel, and she brought the rod up in a single fluid motion to slam into whatever part of Denna it could find. The flush of victory, as the blow connected, was almost enough to wash away the remnants of nausea._

_To her credit, Denna didn’t make a sound as she absorbed the shock of it; she took a single calculated step backwards, always in control even when she was the victim, and forcefully yanked Cara’s agiel-wielding hand away from her. The smile was gone now, replaced by a steely determination that Cara knew she would find reflected in her own eyes. One way or the other, this confrontation would end with the scream of blood._

_“You’re pathetic,” Cara snarled, spitting out the bitter taste still on her tongue. “So blinded by your desire to bed the Lord Rahl that you have forgotten your station.”_

_“And you have forgotten yours,” Denna retorted. “Just because the Lord Rahl favours your services, it does not mean they are better than mine. And, just because he enjoys your tongue, it does not mean that you are permitted to use it against_ me _. I may not decorate his bed, but I’m still closer to him than you... and, if I advised him to dispose of you, he would do so without hesitation. Know it, Cara.”_

_“If that were the case,” Cara panted, forcing a tight smirk even as she found herself fighting her own body as much as Denna’s, “he would have disposed of me weeks ago. You have told him – many times, I’m sure – to take his pleasure elsewhere... and still he comes to me. Because I am superior to you.”_

_Once again, Denna lashed out, and once again Cara was forced to summon all of her strength to keep from recoiling as her head snapped back._

_She should not have been so easily bested, she knew, and that knowledge sickened her so much more than the churning in her belly. The blow was matched a moment later by the vivid flash of pain that could only have come from an agiel against her neck, and Cara fought the urge to cry out, even as the combined effects of pain and the rolling of her stomach coupled to render her without breath._

_“Perhaps you should demonstrate your ‘skills’,” Denna rasped, gripping Cara’s braid with the hand that wasn’t holding the agiel, and driving her down to her knees. “If they truly are as_ superior _as you claim.”_

_“You aren’t worthy of what I have to offer,” Cara ground out, and Denna responded with a rough tug at her hair._

_“And you, Cara,” she sneered, “are my subordinate. You cannot disobey me, however desperately you may want to. You will do what I say, however it may humiliate you, because I am the right hand of Darken Rahl, and you are not.”_

_“No,” Cara agreed carelessly, smiling even from her knees. “I am the reason he has no use for his right hand.”_

_This time, when Denna hit her, lashing hard with the agiel even as her other hand tightened over her braid to hold her head in place, it was more than worth it._

_“You need to learn your place, Cara,” Denna said, sheathing her agiel. Cara rolled her eyes, even as Denna’s freed hand worked its way down to lazily unbuckle her belt. “You believe your so-called skills place you above the hierarchy. I am here to tell you they do not.” Her eyes flashed with genuine danger as she loosened her leathers, and she yanked Cara’s head forward. “Service me.”_

_Despite her precarious position, Cara laughed._

_Again, Denna struck her. Once across the face, as a warning, and then again, hard enough that Cara was sure she could hear bone cracking somewhere in her head. Her skull throbbed and she was still nauseous, but she laughed again. Because it was pitiful._ Denna _was pitiful. Did she truly believe that being serviced by the Lord Rahl’s favourite would somehow bring her closer to his bed? That living out her fantasies vicariously through Cara, simply because she had pleasured him first, would somehow make her worthy?_

_Denna was beyond reason, though. Cara could tell by the near-blind wildness of the blows, by the spasmodic way Denna’s fist gripped her hair, by the unrestrained rage blazing in her eyes, that she was teetering on the knife-edge of control. It was a dangerous place, for both of them, but Cara would not submit. If Denna wanted this, she would have to take it by force._

_And, it seemed, Mistress Denna was more than happy to do just that. Cara closed her eyes, bracing for the next rain of blows, for the fist in her braid to tear at her as though she were a puppet and Denna her master, for her mouth to be forced against her will upon the heated flesh that she could practically feel throbbing through the shifted barrier of leather (because everyone knew that nothing aroused Mistress Denna quite like resistance), for—_

_“Stop this!”_

_Ears ringing, Cara raised her head, trying to turn; Denna held her down, though, pressing her face with feverish roughness to where her leathers had been loosened just enough to expose the overheated flesh beneath, and refused to let her move._

_“Stay out of this, Dahlia,” Cara growled._

_Despite their position, despite what was about to happen, this was not Dahlia’s fight. If she was to be taken in this way, used and abused like a toy for Denna’s twisted pleasures, all the while her own body fought to destroy her... then, still, the humiliation would be less than that of having to be_ saved _._

_“You have done more than enough,” she snarled, wishing she could meet Dahlia’s eyes and show her just how much damage her interventions had wreaked._

_“I have not done nearly enough,” Dahlia retorted, and, though she couldn’t see anything beyond the crease where smooth red leather met slick alabaster skin, Cara knew exactly what was about to happen. “Step away from her, Denna.”_

_Unlike Cara, Denna never had the chance to laugh at the gall of her fellow Mord-Sith in daring to give her orders. In less than a heartbeat, Dahlia had crossed whatever distance had existed between them and punched Denna so hard that Cara suddenly found herself watching with not-quite satisfaction as the elegant blonde landed hard on her back some feet away, spitting blood._

_“Get up, Cara,” Dahlia said, though Cara noticed that she wasn’t looking at her; her eyes, blazing with an intensity that Cara had never seen in her before, were fixed irremovably on Denna. “If you try to touch her again, Denna, I will kill you with my bare hands.”_

_“Dahlia,” Cara said, as she and Denna righted themselves in perfect unison. “This is between Denna and myself. It is no concern of yours, and this is no place for your misplaced sense of chivalry. You are not my protector, and this battle is not yours to fight. Leave us, now.”_

_“Shut up!” Dahlia shouted, and Cara blinked in poorly-concealed surprise at the defiance in the other woman’s voice. “If Mistress Denna had any idea what sort of damage she may cause if she continues in this manner, she would not be half so quick to seek out her pleasures in you.”_

_Denna was smiling that fire-and-ice smile again, and Cara shivered despite herself. What was Dahlia doing?_

_“Are you saying I’m outside my authority?” Denna asked, lazily caressing the handle of her agiel, as if debating which of the two would make a more satisfying prey. “Are you telling me that I’m not within my right to demand service from whichever of my subordinates I choose? Or that it’s unjust for me to discipline anyone foolish enough to disobey me when I’ve given them an order?” Her eyes flashed again, not with danger this time, but with frigid amusement. “Would you feel the same way if I had done the same to any of our other sisters? Would you be risking a week over the blood pit for anybody else, Dahlia? Or are you simply so weakened by your foolish emotion that you see nothing here but_ her _?”_

_“This has nothing to do with emotion, Denna.”_

_“Oh?” Denna chuckled, quirking a perfect eyebrow in bemusement. “Then what? Affection? Loyalty? Friendship?”_

_“The future of D’Hara,” Dahlia replied readily._

_Cara rolled her eyes, finding herself dangerously close to siding with the acerbic Denna on this._

_“Talk sense, Dahlia,” she snapped. “Or do not speak at all.”_

_To her surprise, Dahlia continued to ignore her, eyes boring into Denna as though they were the only two people in all the world; though it pained her to admit it, Cara felt almost cheated by the rejection. Hadn’t Dahlia come here out of some misguided loyalty to her? Wasn’t she here under the delusion that Cara needed her protection? And yet it was Denna who had her attention, purely and completely, as though Cara herself was no more than a vessel. As though she didn’t matter at all. It made her furious, and she could no longer figure out which of her two sisters she was more angry with._

_“You may do as you wish to her,” Dahlia was saying, clearly choosing her words very carefully, “but do not expect the Lord Rahl to be merciful to you if he discovers that your petty, ignorant pride caused you to risk depriving him of his heir.”_

_“What?” Denna asked, turning white._

_“Do as you want,” Dahlia went on. “But know that what you do to her—”_

_Finally, she turned to face Cara, and her eyes were alive with unspoken apology._ I did not want you to find out this way _, she seemed to say, and Cara felt the ground falling out from beneath her as the reality of what Dahlia was trying to tell them both slammed into her with so much more force than any blow Denna, or anyone else, could ever dream of delivering._

_“—you do also to the Lord Rahl’s unborn child.”_


	14. Chapter 14

For a long moment, Kahlan thought Cara had been struck again, so sharp and anguished was the gasp that ripped from her throat, and it was only when the ragged sound was followed (a few long moments later) by a half-choked “... _what_?” that she realised it was shock and not pain that had caused such a reaction.

“Cara?” she asked.

“Explain yourself, Dahlia,” Cara growled; apparently she’d recovered herself by this point, because her voice was so low and dangerous, so filled with threat that Kahlan almost didn’t recognise it as hers.

She had seen Cara in the thrall of her Mord-Sith temper a hundred times or more, but this was different. Whatever news she’d just been given, Cara was furious on a level that even Kahlan had never seen before. Furious, and... was that fear as well? And no small amount of it, either. The two clashed, warring for dominance on Cara’s face until Kahlan couldn’t separate the one from the other.

“What is it, Cara?”

For a heart-stopping moment, Cara said nothing. Her blind eyes stared fixedly ahead, as though she wanted nothing more than to run through the nonexistent Dahlia with her glare alone, hands fisting spasmodically, jaw clenched so tight that Kahlan could see every detail of the bone and twitching muscle beneath. And then, finally, she lurched forwards, flailing like a drowning child, and Kahlan knew that she was trying to throttle an answer out of Dahlia; if she hadn’t already made up her mind about the sort of person – the sort of Mord-Sith – Dahlia was, Kahlan might almost have felt sorry for her.

“You’re mistaken,” Cara said at long last, though Kahlan could tell that she didn’t really believe it. “You are seeing things that don’t exist.”

She drew a deep breath, seemingly willing herself to calm down lest she inflict real harm, and Kahlan took the opportunity to pull her back into her arms.

“Stay calm,” she murmured, as if it would help. “It’s all right. Whatever she did, I’m sure she didn’t mean it.”

“It’s not _possible_!” Cara shouted, and Kahlan wondered who she was trying to convince. “It _cannot_ be. I can’t... I’m not...” She closed her eyes, jaw working even harder. “Dahlia, I am not...”

“Not what?” Kahlan asked, despite herself.

“I am not...” Cara echoed weakly, sounding utterly terrifed. “... _with child_.”

Had she not already been sitting on the floor at that moment, Kahlan would have fallen over.

*

_It was true._

_She could tell by the sadness behind Dahlia’s eyes. More, though, she could tell by the way Denna still stood exactly where she’d been thrown minutes ago, mouth agape, gaze locked on Cara’s midsection as though it alone was responsible for the way her entire world had been completely overturned (and, Cara supposed, it effectively was). Had she been standing where Denna was, Cara strongly suspected she wouldd be doing exactly the same thing._

_“I am not with child,” she repeated, knowing how futile it was, and hating the way she was beginning to crumble beneath the weight of what she’d been told. “I am_ not _, Dahlia.”_

_“Cara,” Dahlia murmured, and Cara was still so thunderstruck that she couldn’t even bring herself to berate the other woman for allowing so much weak-willed compassion to touch her voice in Denna’s presence. “Cara, look at me. You know it’s the truth. Whether you want to believe it or not, you know I’m not lying. You know I would never lie to you about something as important as this.” She lowered her gaze to where Cara had unconsciously wrapped her arms around her gurgling belly. “And you know it. Inside you, you know it. You know it’s true, Cara.”_

_Finally, after what seemed like a dozen lifetimes of stunned silence, Denna recovered her composure. Cara, meanwhile, did not._

_“Do you mean to tell me...” Denna demanded of Cara, eyes dancing with bemused malice, “...that_ you _, whom the Lord Rahl personally selected as his pet whore, needed_ her _– little more than your own plaything – to tell you that you were with child? That you, Cara, swollen on your own self-worth as you are, remain ignorant enough of your own pathetically weak body that you didn’t even know it for yourself?” She laughed, heartless and humourless. “And you have the nerve to claim superiority?”_

_“Be quiet,” Dahlia snapped. “Unless you wish for the Lord Rahl to be made aware of your mistreatment of his child.”_

_“One day, Dahlia,” rasped Denna, lips and brows quirking in unison, “you will misstep, and trip. And, when that happens, know that I’ll be there to make sure you land on a blade.”_

_Dahlia rolled her eyes. “It will be a disastrous misstep, indeed,” she quipped, “if it would cause you to succeed in besting me.” Her tone, Cara noted, matched Denna’s perfectly, note for note. “Now leave us. I’m sure you have some infants to torture into submission.”_

_Shooting one last malicious look at them both, though blessedly without words, Denna turned and departed. Even defeated as she was, the pale blonde still managed to make it appear as though she was leaving simply because it was what she wanted to do; though Dahlia was holding her own position above her head like a noose, it was still Denna who appeared to wield all the power. It was remarkable and obscene in equal measure._

_The instant she was out of sight, and out of earshot, Cara turned to Dahlia; she didn’t even have strength enough to try and conceal the humiliation that she knew was rippling clear as daylight through the depths of her eyes, and could only shut them tight and take some small shred of comfort in knowing that Dahlia, alone in the world, would not judge her for it._

_“I truly am an idiot,” she sighed._

_“You are,” Dahlia affirmed with a sorrowful chuckle, and Cara almost smiled at the feel of familiar arms wrapped around her own. “You are a stubborn, self-satisfying idiot. But you are_ my _idiot.”_

*

It took Kahlan far longer than she would ever admit to recover from the shock of what she’d heard. She’d known, of course, thanks to Cara’s murmurings, that she had been providing particular services to Darken Rahl, and had known (though, much to her relief, the spell had never made Cara recall the details) precisely what those services had entailed... but she had never suspected this. Not a child. Not _Rahl’s_ child.

Beside her, Cara had gone silent again, and Kahlan took advantage of her placated nature to pull her into a hug; her heart ached as Cara offered no resistance, knowing well enough that, had she been conscious, she would have gladly taken an agiel to Kahlan’s chest (especially at a moment like this) if she thought it would end the embrace. And, truth be told, Kahlan wasn’t entirely sure why she was hugging her in the first place; every one of her instincts was telling her that she ought to have been sickened, disgusted, tormented by the very idea that Cara had actually borne a child for Darken Rahl... but she wasn’t.

She didn’t hate Cara for what she’d just learned. She was shocked, yes, and certainly horrified... but neither of those things were directed at Cara. At least, not specifically. Perhaps it was the lingering effects of the earlier traumatic incident, the soul-rending terror that had almost devoured her; perhaps she was simply less alienated now than she had been while watching as Cara writhed in the throes of passion with a phantom Dahlia. Whatever the reason, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know, it had had the same result – where she should have been nauseated by the thought of what that world’s Cara had done, now she felt only pain that her Cara was going through it as well.

But then, said an unwanted voice in the back of her head, who was she to assume that the same thing hadn’t happened to her Cara as well? Who was Kahlan to assume, simply because she didn’t want to believe it and simply because she hadn’t known about it, that her Cara hadn’t also carried and borne a child for Darken Rahl? Surely it made more sense; for all the apparent significance Dahlia had had in Cara’s life, she could not have had any influence over Rahl’s desires, or over Cara’s willingness to please her lord when she was summoned to his bed over and over again.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” she asked softly, cupping Cara’s cheek and gazing into her sightless eyes. “Why didn’t you—”

As quickly as the question had formed, it died incomplete upon her lips, smothered by a dizzying wave of realisation.

Cara hadn’t _known_. Though she could only hear one half of the conversation, Kahlan had figured that much out for herself. Cara had needed to be informed – and by Dahlia – of the fact. Dahlia had told her she was with child, even though it seemed (at least to Kahlan) that Cara probably should have figured it out for herself by that point.

She hadn’t, though. She hadn’t figured it out, and she hadn’t known. She had been locked up tight in conflict with Denna – violent conflict, if Cara’s jerking and twitching were anything to go by – and she truly hadn’t known that there was an embryonic life blossoming within her until Dahlia had arrived and stopped the altercation.

For the first time since Cara had been placed under the spell, Kahlan allowed herself to genuinely think about how great a difference Dahlia’s presence may have actually made to Cara’s life. Without her there, Denna wouldn’t have stopped, and Cara would certainly not have risked her pride by stopping her.

Even if nothing else in Cara’s life had been changed, even if Kahlan’s Cara truly had been bearing Rahl’s child, just as this other Cara was... if she hadn’t known, and she had continued to brawl like a headstrong child with Denna (and Kahlan knew perfectly well how Mord-Sith brawls always ended), the damage caused would have been more than enough to destroy the life within her before anyone had ever known it was there.

The thought caused Kahlan’s blood to run colder than ice, and she shivered; Dahlia’s influence in that world, it seemed, had touched much more than just Cara’s own life.

Perhaps, she mused with a bitterness that coated her tongue like poison, there was a deeper purpose to all of this after all. Maybe (and even the thought of it was abhorrent to her), Dahlia was more than just the woman who had betrayed Cara in a bid to bring her back to Darken Rahl. Perhaps (and Kahlan would deny to her grave having ever entertained the notion, even for just a moment), Cara had actually known what she was talking about when she’d insisted on going through this.

“You’re so arrogant, Cara,” Kahlan sighed, letting her fingertips trail lazily up and down Cara’s leather-covered arm. “How is it that you always manage to be right as well?”

*

_“She will be so strong.”_

_Cara chuckled disdainfully, letting her fingers tangle with Dahlia’s as the other woman traced intricate patterns over her slowly-swelling stomach. She had lost count of how many hours they’d lain like this for, naked and wrapped up in each other, the warmth of Dahlia’s body at her back and the heat of her breath on her neck, arm draped across her so possessively that there was no need for a blanket. It was the closest thing to true family Cara had known since she was a child, and she was intoxicated by it. It frightened her._

_“What if it’s a boy?” she asked, bemused by the way Dahlia huffed and grumbled indignantly at the mere suggestion. “Will he not be strong?”_

_“He will be the future of D’Hara,” Dahlia told her, and Cara could feel her smiling as she pressed an almost-tender kiss to the curve of her shoulder. “Can you imagine it, Cara?”_

_“No,” Cara confessed; she wanted to sit up, but she didn’t want to deprive herself of Dahlia’s presence, and so she settled for trailing ghostly touches up and down the backs of Dahlia’s fingers. “I cannot.”_

_“But it’s the truth,” Dahlia told her, and Cara was suddenly overwhelmed by the desire to turn around and kiss her senseless. “You are carrying within you the child of Lord Rahl. If she is a girl, she will be the most formidable Mord-Sith the world has ever known. And, if it is a boy, he will be the future Lord Rahl, ruler of D’Hara. Your son, Cara, the next Lord Rahl.”_

_Grudgingly extricating herself from the bubble of not-quite contentment that had descended so unexpectedly upon her, Cara finally did turn around, rolling over onto her other side and tilting Dahlia’s chin upwards with the backs of her fingers. She didn’t kiss her, though every fibre of her being ached to, instead drinking in the alien colours swirling behind the other woman’s eyes._

_“You believe it will be a girl, though,” Cara said; it was an observation, not an accusation. “You want it to be a girl.”_

_The colours in Dahlia’s eyes shifted, and Cara’s breath caught in her throat as she recognised them; it was something dangerously close to love. Though every ounce of her training told her to beat the worthless sentiment out of Dahlia until no trace of it remained, she did not. She couldn’t move, couldn’t bring herself to look down on Dahlia for being so weak as to indulge that hated emotion. She could not judge Dahlia for it... not when she was so very close to feeling it herself._

_“I do,” Dahlia admitted quietly, as though the confession came from deep within her. “I want her to look like you... to be like you.”_

_“You’d wish for the child be more like me than the Lord Rahl?” Cara asked, unable to comprehend the logic in that._

_Dahlia traced the curve of Cara’s bottom lip with the edge of her thumb, closing her eyes with relish._

_“I would sooner the child be more like you than anyone in D’Hara,” she replied without hesitation. “I would die for the Lord Rahl, with not a moment’s hesitation, and I will be proud beyond words to serve him until my grave. It is the greatest honour I could hope for.” Cara did not need to feel the way her jaw tightened with pride to know she was speaking the truth. “But to see_ you _in a child, Cara... to see your eyes in her, your hands, your smile... to know that she will grow up to have your strength, your courage, your spirit... I know it’s blasphemy, Cara, but I can’t think of anything more beautiful in all the world.”_

_“Careful, Dahlia...” Cara warned, even as her heart threatened to flutter in her chest. “These thoughts of yours cannot end well. The child is the property of Lord Rahl.”_

_“I know,” Dahlia acknowledged, sounding almost genuinely saddened by the fact. “But she is yours, too, and she will have the best and the worst of you within her.” Her eyes were glowing, alight with so many things that were so unlike a Mord-Sith and so like the Dahlia Cara knew so well. “Your daughter, Cara. Or your son. Your flesh and blood.”_

_Cara sighed, casting aside the look in Dahlia’s eyes as swiftly as she cast away the echoing desires in her own heart. “My flesh, and my blood, belong to the Lord Rahl.”_

*

Something in the careless dismissal that coloured Cara’s voice brought Kahlan close to tears.

She knew that the Mord-Sith had spent all their lives being trained to believe that their existences began and ended with their duty to the Lord Rahl. She knew that, even after more than a year in the company of Richard (complete with his insistences that she didn’t need to worship him as she had his brother), Cara still couldn’t tear herself away from those blood-beaten beliefs. She knew all that, knew that Cara was a product of the twisted loyalties that had been beaten so devoutly into her, but she had never seen it take quite so destructive a shape as this before.

Cara thought of herself as a tool – a weapon, albeit a finely-honed one, whose purpose was to be used when necessary and discarded when not. They all knew that perfectly well, and Richard in particular had worked painstakingly hard to try and teach her that she was worth so much more than that. It had been a difficult endeavour, and Kahlan had watched with ever-increasing frustration as the lessons had failed time and time again to land at all. For all the improvement Cara had made in the time they’d been travelling together, her own value as a human being continued with dogged determination to evade her.

But this wasn’t about Cara’s merits, or her worth. It was about her child, a child that she would carry within her for nine months, a child that she would give birth to, and raise and teach and watch grow from a mewling infant into a full-fledged person. It was her son, or her daughter. It was _hers_ , and she was speaking as though she had no more claim to its existence than she had claim to Darken Rahl’s nightstand.

As hard as she tried, Kahlan couldn’t figure out whether she was frustrated with Cara or heartbroken on her behalf. It was all that the Mord-Sith knew, and yet some part of her was screaming that Cara – _her Cara_ – should have known better, that she should have resisted the idea that she and her unborn child were only worth as much as Darken Rahl told her they were. Cara, who had defied Denna almost at the cost of the child’s life, who had beaten, and been beaten in turn, more times than Kahlan could count in even just the lone day the spell had thus far lasted. How could a woman so strong and self-assured when facing her sisters consider herself so worthless in all the things that truly mattered?

Of course, she knew the answer. She knew it by the screams Cara had loosed when reliving her childhood training, by the tight-lipped whimpers she’d held back as that youth bled into adulthood, by the devotions that fell from her lips on a near-hourly basis. She knew exactly why Cara was what she was, exactly what had made her that way, and exactly why it was so impossible for her to be anything else. But knowing didn’t make it easier to witness, and it didn’t cease the conflicted pangs in her heart.

It didn’t help, either, that Cara’s assertions seemed to come in spite of Dahlia, and not in consequence of her. The pill was a bitter one for Kahlan to swallow, and her mind replayed at obnoxiously loud volumes what Cara had told her when they’d spoken in the forest. She recalled vividly Cara’s repeated insistences that her soullessness was the product of her having been trained alone, and her faith in Dahlia’s presence to have stripped her of that, her hopes that this woman might somehow made her more human. _More_ human, Kahlan’s wounded heart cried, not less.

Kahlan would have given anything to hear Cara speaking fondly of the unborn life inside her, to hear her fighting to defend it instead of dismissing it as she had. She wanted Dahlia to be the one insisting on duty and honour and Darken Rahl as important beyond all else, and for Cara to be the one clinging to the sentiments that she knew – she _knew_ – were there locked away inside her somewhere. She wanted to know, beyond all doubt, that Dahlia was the one responsible for these calloused thoughts that ripped and tore at Cara’s soul... but she knew, by those brittle words falling unchecked from Cara’s lips, that it wasn’t that way at all.

It was the other way around, she realised, and it hurt. Cara was the one without a soul, even here, and Dahlia was the one struggling with all her strength to nurture the long-dead seed that had once (long ago) flourished with feeling and emotion and beauty. It broke Kahlan’s heart to know the truth of it, just as deeply as it had humiliated her to have admitted that Cara may have been right about this.

“If you make me care for this woman, Cara,” she heard herself murmur, the words coming almost independent of her thoughts, “I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive you.”

Cara said nothing, but she shifted just enough that her forehead rested momentarily against Kahlan’s own. Though she knew it was a coincidence, like all of Cara’s spell-induced words and movements, in her mind’s eye Kahlan read the insignificant gesture as one of acceptance, and of gratitude.

“You’re welcome,” she said, the words barely audible over the pounding of her pulse.

A soft sigh hummed in Cara’s throat; far from the perplexity or irritation of her previous few, this seemed almost like a sigh of tranquillity, the sort of sigh that came with a descent into sleep. Hearing it, and feeling her heart swell with something utterly indefinable, it was more than Kahlan could do to keep herself from brushing her lips across the curved plane of Cara’s cheek.

The peace, she knew, wouldn’t last; in fact, she was prepared for it to end almost before she’d even acknowledged its existence in the first place, being so accustomed to such moments being interrupted by scenes of torture. But that knowledge – that it could end at any moment – only made her appreciate its beauty all the more for being so fleeting. And so, she drank down deep of the rare moment of comfort and warmth and almost-contentment that painted its way across Cara’s spell-blanked features, taking it in and committing it to memory.

“She still doesn’t deserve you,” she said, and Cara breathed another comfortable sigh. “But you don’t really deserve her, either.”

*

_Lord Rahl was a merciful master, but he was not generous._

_He acknowledged the situation, because he had no other choice. He made allowances when Cara’s condition forced her to neglect her duties, and released her from all obligations to his bed. But he did no more than that, and Cara was mostly left to herself for the duration of the child’s incubation._

_It was an arrangement she was secretly glad of; she wanted to think as little as possible about what would happen to the child when it was born, and was more than content to be attended to by Dahlia instead of the Lord Rahl, as much of an honour the latter would have been._

_Dahlia, in turn, was equally happy to attend to her, and did so without ever having been asked for; Cara knew that she could have ordered Dahlia to do whatever she wished (whether for the sake of the child or for her own satisfaction), and Dahlia would have done so without question, but she found time and time again that she didn’t need to. Dahlia, attentive to a fault, was already offering exactly what Cara needed before she could even form the words to ask for it, much less shape the request into a command._

_She missed the authority, missed the power, missed the sparkle in Dahlia’s eye when she was ordered to her knees... the heat that tore through them both as Cara’s body was wracked by the pleasure of exerting herself over Dahlia, and Dahlia’s arched in turn with the satisfaction of knowing that Cara was coming undone for her and her alone. She missed being able to exert herself in words as well as body, the way Dahlia would submit, the way she would obey._

_She missed a great many things, but there was a new depth to what was between them now; the life growing in Cara had bred something that was so different it would have been frightening to a lesser being than a Mord-Sith, and she found that the shift almost made up for the countless things she missed so deeply._

_Though Dahlia had assured Cara that she’d heard her warnings, that she knew the child was Lord Rahl’s to do with as he desired, and that she’d dismissed her fanciful fantasies of seeing the infant raised among them, there was no concealing the way her eyes misted ever so slightly when her fingertips rested on Cara’s belly, feeling the feathering kicks and bubbling hiccups of the life within. Cara had tried to repeat her warnings, tried to remind Dahlia of the dangers in the game she was playing, of how futile it was to become attached to a child that wasn’t hers... but it was hopeless. Dahlia, for all her insistences to the contrary, was in love._

_In her defence, even Cara herself couldn’t deny that it was difficult to ignore the child when it was so determined to make its presence known. It kicked constantly, and, when it wasn’t kicking, it was moving and twisting and hiccuping, its relentless enthusiasm doing unspeakable things to Cara’s insides. It was a rebellious, obnoxious little beast, and Cara hated it._

_“She’s just like her mother,” Dahlia made the foolish mistake of cooing into her ear one night, the fifth in a row when the infuriating creature had kept Cara awake with its irritating and ceaseless efforts to destroy her._

_“Dahlia,” Cara hissed, rolling over and biting down hard on the other woman’s lower lip in a bid at venting some tiny amount of her frustration. “If I mean anything to you at all, you will get this horrible little bastard out of me. Now.”_

_Well accustomed to Cara’s ire by now, Dahlia just laughed._

_“You don’t mean that,” she said, running her tongue lazily over the curve of her lip where Cara’s teeth had drawn blood._

_“I do!” Cara snarled, using more effort than she would have liked to keep her voice down so as not to wake the entire temple. “I want it gone. I want it out of me. Dahlia, I wish to remember how it feels to have ten minutes of uninterrupted sleep! That’s not a lot to ask for!”_

_“Cara...” Dahlia started, but Cara was not in the mood to indulge her meaningless reassurances._

_“I’m serious, Dahlia,” she snapped. “If our sisters were to force new recruits to endure_ this _as part of their training, the breaking of them would be so much easier.”_

_“You’re exaggerating,” Dahlia said, kissing her lightly._

_“I am losing my mind!” Cara lamented. “This obnoxious infant truly is the child of Lord Rahl. It is not yet even born, and already it is an expert in the subtle art of torture.”_

_Dahlia chuckled and allowed her lips to descend the column of Cara’s neck, drawing an involuntary purr. It was so easy to forget her troubles when Dahlia was doing things to distract her so completely from them. Even the endless kicking of the monster within her could not compete with the delicious labours of Dahlia’s tongue when it was on a mission to consume her._

_“Perhaps that just means she’s truly the child of a Mord-Sith,” Dahlia said, and her tongue dipped languidly into the hollow at the base of Cara’s throat. “Perhaps it just means that she’s learning from you.” Cara tried to growl in protest, but the attentions of Dahlia’s mouth made it hard to think. “I know of nobody more expert in that particular art than you,” Dahlia went on pointedly, and her ministrations soothed over the lash of the words. “Nobody, Cara. Deny it all you want, but she_ is _yours.”_

_“If that is the case,” Cara muttered, malice and desire fighting for control over her voice, “it will be a boy.”_

_“Why do you say that?” Dahlia asked, eyes dancing with hungry amusement._

_Cara shed a grin, despite her annoyance. “Because he will know, and delight in, how much that will disappoint you.”_

*

To anyone else, there was nothing in Cara’s bemusedly-murmured remark that was worth any kind of attention. To Kahlan, it was just cause for her heart to stop beating.

She’d been listening carefully to Cara’s mumblings, almost more than she had to anything else that had passed the Mord-Sith’s lips thus far, simply because she was still reeling (in part, at least) from the notion of Cara carrying Darken Rahl’s child at all. The majority of what Cara had had to say for herself hadn’t offered much relief from the sheer mind-bending wrongness of it all, but that one half-uttered phrase (that barely-significant sentence, intended as nothing more or less than one more in a long line of cutting jibes at the expense of an increasingly unfortunate Dahlia) had caught Kahlan so entirely off-guard that she’d almost lost what little amount still remained of her balance.

Despite herself, despite all her insistences, despite everything she’d said on the subject, Cara had not called the child ‘it’. She had, seemingly without even noticing, said ‘he’.

It was the first time since the entire child-bearing fiasco had started that Cara had referred to the child as anything other than ‘it’, or given it any other title than ‘beast’ or ‘creature’ (or, on one particularly aggressive occasion, ‘soul-destroying spawn of the Keeper’). Kahlan had lost track of the lamentations, of the complaints, of the frustrations and the hormones and the later-denied tears that Cara had vented over the course of the whole affair, and knew only that it had been a matter of some hours by the fact that the light cast through the window from the outside world had shifted from wan moonlight to the shivering rays of dawn. And, in all that time, Cara had not once referred to the child as anything other than a genderless creature.

Kahlan wasn’t deluded enough to think that one word alone signified a complete change of heart on Cara’s part, but she knew Cara well enough (more than well enough) to know that it meant _something_ , that there had been a shift within her, even if it was just a small one. The child, though perhaps still a far cry from being _her_ child, had ceased to be some nameless and faceless object that she was just keeping warm for her Lord Rahl. It had become a life. It had become, at least in Cara’s eyes, human.

There was hope, Kahlan realised with a sense of joy that left her breathless, for this Cara. Even steeped as she still was in the heartlessness and soullessness and brokenness of the Mord-Sith, there was hope for humanity, for feeling and faith and, if not love, at least empathy. Kahlan had no way of knowing how long they had until the child was born, how much more affection Dahlia would be able to breed in Cara’s stubborn-willed heart, or how long they would have with the child before Darken Rahl claimed it as his possession, but it didn’t matter. Even if there was nothing else, there had been this. A flicker, little more than that, but it was something.

“You’re in there,” Kahlan breathed. “I know you are. You’re hiding, and you’re denying it, but I know you’re in there.”

It bothered her, far more than she would ever admit, that it was most likely thanks to Dahlia that this was true. If left alone with the life growing within her, Kahlan knew that Cara would have denied its existence – and certainly its usefulness – until it was gone from her, and probably beyond even that. She hadn’t even heard Dahlia’s side of the countless conversations they’d had, the innumerable speeches Cara had rolled her eyes through, the murmurings of affection that she knew must have existed because Cara had been very vocal in dismissing them... but she had pieced them together from Cara’s reactions, and she knew (though it pained her beyond words to admit) that whatever scant shred of humanity existed within Cara was, without doubt, the product of Dahlia’s tireless efforts.

“I still don’t like you,” she heard herself mutter, not stopping to think how absurd it was that she too was now trying to address the phantom of a woman who didn’t exist. “I don’t like anything about you. And I’ll never forgive you for betraying her. I don’t care what you say, I don’t care if you label it ‘love’, or if Cara somehow sees it as that as well. I don’t care what broken Mord-Sith standards you people have for what is right and good in a relationship, and I don’t care how badly you want to justify what you did, I’ll never forgive you for letting Rahl break her again. Never.”

She took a deep breath, feeling the emotion pouring off her in waves, and idly wondering if Cara could feel its heat even through the worlds still separating them.

“But what you’re doing for her now...” She exhaled tightly. “For that, Dahlia, I thank you.”

*

_Cara knew, had known for a very long time (though she’d kept it to herself), that Dahlia would not be permitted to be present at the child’s birth. What she had not known, however, was how much the agonies of childbirth would be heightened by her absence._

_The room was almost empty. Just Cara (somewhat necessary, she supposed, since hers was the body from which the beast of burden would be emerging), General Egremont (Rahl’s most trusted official, there to ensure everything went as planned), and Mistress Denna (standing guard with the sort of smug self-satisfaction that told Cara just how many favours she’d had to call in order to ensure her presence there). Lord Rahl, though he’d assured Cara – with words they’d both known were empty – that he’d wished to be there, had convenient (but urgent, she was assured) business to attend elsewhere, and so was not present. His absence neither surprised nor disappointed Cara._

_The absence of Dahlia, however, was a different matter entirely._

_Dahlia, who had held her hand through every last moment of the perpetually unpleasant experience. Dahlia, who had stayed awake with her for more nights than either of them could count, who had calmed her stomach and cleaned up after her throughout the early months of sickness, who had held her through the middle months of hormonal breakdowns, who had consoled her through the later months of aches and pains and being too swollen to fit into her leathers. Dahlia, who had been there the whole time, who was more the child’s mother than even Cara herself._

_And she was not there in the one moment it mattered. She had done everything, for Cara, and for the child... and yet she had been deprived the right to see it brought into the world._

_What physical pain there was had little effect on Cara. She had endured far worse over the course of her training, and worse again since then, and the tearing spasms of contraction did little to bother her. Denna, she knew, would be carefully watching for any sign of weakness, and Cara would make sure to give her none. That she would be able to endure the physical symptoms without the least reaction had never been in question; if she did submit to them, she would be disgraced._

_But it stole the breath from her lungs, as her body bore down and her hormones screamed and the exhaustion chewed at the edges of her, how much pain she felt at not having the sweet warmth of Dahlia’s hand in hers._

_It wasn’t emotion she was feeling; she knew this because it ran far deeper than that. It was something raw, almost primal, something that caused her to scream despite the fact that the pain was nothing by comparison to what she endured on a near-daily basis. It was something pure, something indefinable and inexpressible, something that she couldn’t understand (though, even braced as she was for the discomfort and the messiness of childbirth, she was not really in a position to understand very much of anything at all). It was beyond description, and it hurt more excruciatingly than all the birthing pain in all the world._

_“Breathe, Cara,” Denna instructed from the doorway as Cara allowed another raw cry to escape her; she sounded positively delighted at having been given opportunity to issue instructions, even now. “Surely you’re stronger than this.”_

_As much as it pained her to admit, it was a mark of just how weak Cara had become in the months she had wasted carrying this accursed child that she couldn’t muster so much as a word in retaliation. Instead, she gritted her teeth and fought to breathe through the cavalcade of noise in her head, and focus beyond the memories that would not leave her alone. It was futile, though, and another howl wrenched from her as they worked in unison to render her utterly unable to concentrate on the task that required her attention so much more pressingly just then._

_Dahlia, one hand pillowing Cara’s head, the other tracing light circles on her belly as the child kicked with ever-increasing enthusiasm; much to Dahlia’s delight (and Cara’s irrepressible aggravation), it always seemed to kick hardest when Dahlia’s hand was there. The two of them, entwined irremovably in a haze of post-coital contentment, Dahlia’s fingers still buried deep inside her as she kissed away the revenants of hormone-addled tears that Cara could not explain and would never admit to. Dahlia, rubbing her back as Cara surrendered to the nausea that plagued her each morning... and then again, lavishing her with surreal concoctions that would have turned the stomach of even the strongest Mord-Sith, but which Cara had suddenly realised she couldn’t live without._

_Dahlia, again and again, a hundred different ways and a thousand different moments. Always, Dahlia._

_“Denna,” she growled through the comforting pain of yet another body-rending contraction. “If you are the reason she is not here, I will kill you with my bare hands. On my life, Denna, I swear it.”_

_A sadistic smirk tugged at the corners of Denna’s lips; Cara could tell that the threat was exactly what she’d wanted to hear, and that knowledge only served to stoke the fire in Cara’s blood even more._

_“You have a duty to perform, Cara,” Denna pointed out tartly, as if either of them needed the reminder. “I suggest you cast aside your petty vendettas and concentrate on bringing the Lord Rahl’s child into the world alive.”_

_Whatever arguments Cara might have offered died in her throat as another contraction seized her, bringing with it a fresh wave of pain-shrouded memories._

*

Though she was trapped on the wrong side of the spell, looking in through a window clouded by frosted glass and plastered with paper, Kahlan saw everything. Every detail, every breath, every moment, everything, and all through Cara.

For the first time in as long as Kahlan had known her, Cara was completely unashamed. Her feelings, such as they were, painted their way across her features so vividly it was almost as if she were still the helpless little girl she’d been when she was first taken, and she didn’t even care; her eyes snapped open wide with pain in one instant, then squeezed shut with heartache in the next, and Kahlan could hear in the guttural cries that wrenched unchecked from some primal place deep within her that her throat was cried raw.

As the Mother Confessor, Kahlan had seen the whole spectrum of human emotion a thousand times, played out across a thousand faces in a thousand different places. She had even some in the throes of childbirth just like Cara was now... but not like this, never quite like this. Never in a Mord-Sith. And, above all else, never in _Cara_.

Without even realising she’d done it, Kahlan had shifted their positions to unconsciously mirror those of a true birth; she had settled herself behind Cara, her back pressed tight against the cold wall with Cara sat between her legs. Once or twice, she’d caught herself murmuring impromptu encouragements – well-intentioned suggestions, words of comfort, birthing advice – but she had made herself stop that as soon as she’d realised she was doing it... and she’d stopped talking altogether as she became ever more enthralled by the waves of feeling that swam like fish through the depths of Cara’s face.

She knew, though she wasn’t there, the very instant the child was born. She knew by feeling-choked moan of irrepressible relief that it was healthy, and knew by the way the Mord-Sith sank back against her, gasping with bone-deep exhaustion, that it was all over. She knew by the way Cara’s expression flickered from exhausted sentiment to dangerous warning that Denna had approached, that she had taken the infant from her, and that she was gloating over it. She knew everything, every last moment. She knew it all, as if she was right there herself, and yet she still didn’t know—

“A boy,” Cara said, and that revelation was all Kahlan needed to hug her so tightly that she was worried that one or the other of them would crack a rib. “A boy. A... a _son_.”

“Oh, Cara...” Kahlan managed to whimper, her own voice coming as if from across a great distance, tears flowing unchecked down her cheeks. “Cara...”

They sat there together for just a handful of seconds, Kahlan reeling from the emotions of an experience that neither of them had really lived through, and Cara visibly recovering from the physical and emotional turmoil that always came with bringing a new life into the world. It was a beautiful moment, and one that would remain with Kahlan for the rest of her life in spite of the knowledge that it was no more real than any of this had been. Cara hadn’t even known she was there, and there was nothing in any of this that should have affected her at all, much less to the extent it had... and yet, it was among the most heart-stoppingly beautiful moments of Kahlan’s life.

And then, shattering the thrall of it before Kahlan truly had enough time to bask in its glow, Cara sat bolt upright.

“Where are you going with him?” she demanded, voice hoarse but etched with panic.

Reflexively, Kahlan ran her hands up and down Cara’s arms in the hopes of calming her; she needed to rest, not to worry, even though Kahlan knew perfectly well that she would have been doing the same thing in Cara’s position. For what little they were worth, however, her meagre efforts seemed to work (no doubt coupled with whatever was going on inside the spell, most likely involving Denna’s departure), because Cara’s expression finally relaxed a few seconds later.

“Tell the Lord Rahl...” she began, trembling in Kahlan’s arms as though the words took more strength than she had left in her.

Kahlan knew what she wanted to say, what she ached with every fibre of her being to ask ( _‘tell him I want Dahlia to see the child, tell him she_ needs _to see him, tell him she is as much the boy’s mother as I am, that she has earned the right to hold him, tell him anything in the world to make this happen_ ’). She could hear the words, every one of them, as if they really had been uttered aloud, but she knew – as well as she knew the colour of Cara’s leather or the colour of her eyes – that not one of them would ever leave the Mord-Sith’s lips.

Cara could no more make the request, simple as it was, than she could tear the baby away from Denna, and run with him until her legs collapsed beneath the weight of their newfound freedom. Ghosts of tears were beginning to edge their way into Cara’s eyes, and the sight of them only reaffirmed to Kahlan what they both knew already – that it was impossible.

“Tell him...” Cara repeated, voice shattering like glass and taking Kahlan’s heart with it, “...that I hope my services were adequate.”


	15. Chapter 15

_Cara did not see her son again. She did not hear about him, nor did she hear any rumours about the Lord Rahl having secured himself an heir; she didn’t hear anything at all, and, after far less time than she would have expected, she simply stopped thinking of him at all._

_The first time she’d seen Dahlia after the boy’s birth, she had refused to meet the other woman’s eye; though she knew (though they both knew) the decision to omit Dahlia from the event had never been Cara’s to make, she couldn’t conceal the guilt that wriggled its wormlike way through her at the sight of Dahlia’s bright-eyed, expectant face. Nor could she conceal the piercing pain, far more heart-stopping than anything the birthing process itself could have produced, that had stabbed through her chest at the irrepressible hope touching Dahlia’s voice when she asked about the child._

_“It’s a boy,” Cara had said._

_It was far more of a struggle than it should have been to keep her voice toneless, though she knew it would need to be that way for a long time. The boy was no longer hers, and she would not allow herself to miss him, much less pretend she had any claim over him._

_“The Lord Rahl has his heir,” she went on, then closed her eyes; she could not bear the look in Dahlia’s eyes, or the unconcealed feeling radiating outwards from her, and so she turned away. “My duty is done.”_

_Dahlia came up behind her, and Cara couldn’t quite suppress the groan that ripped from her at the feel of strong and familiar arms snaking around her waist and sure, knowing hands resting flat upon her empty belly. She fought back a grimace, loss mingled with warmth, and tried not to relish too much the way Dahlia felt when she was wrapped around her like this. Tender and forgiving and not quite sorrowful. The embrace was so many things that Mord-Sith should never be, but which were everything Cara needed just then, and she fought to keep from allowing herself the luxury of drowning in it._

_“You must be so proud,” Dahlia said, lips tracing the curve of Cara’s ear, and Cara felt her eyelids fluttering despite herself. “You have borne and birthed the future Lord Rahl. You alone, Cara.”_

_“It is a great honour,” Cara affirmed, losing herself in the caress of Dahlia’s leather-covered fingertips across the sudden unfamiliar flatness of her midsection. “He was a very good child. He cried loudly, and with great strength, as though he hated all the world.” She sighed, and the touch of Dahlia’s lips shifted to something softer. “He will grow into a good fighter, and he will serve D’Hara well.”_

_“Of course he will,” Dahlia agreed, humming. “He is your son.”_

_They didn’t speak of him again after that, and Cara allowed the sorrow to disappear into the abandoned recesses of wasted humanity that lay neglected and unwanted in the back of her mind. There was no place for maternal instincts in the heart of a Mord-Sith, and Cara didn’t really know what had led her to feel anything more than duty to the infant anyway. All she knew was that it had made her heart ache in a way she couldn’t quite comprehend to see the child taken away from her, and that it had lashed more fiercely than a dozen agiels when she had returned to her chambers (and to Dahlia) without him._

_She didn’t mention any of these things to Dahlia, though she knew the other woman sensed them in her; she knew that, if she dared voice them aloud, she would be met with empathy and understanding, and countless other such worthless sentiments (so unbecoming of a Mord-Sith and so decidedly Dahlia)... and she simply could not bear that. She couldn’t bear to know that Dahlia felt the loss just as strongly as she did, or that it might be anything other than utterly unacceptable to feel the way she did. She didn’t want her weaknesses embraced, she wanted them discarded. She wanted to forget that any of this had ever happened._

_By the time the rumours started circulating about a Seeker of Truth, no more than a half-year later, the boy had been all but forgotten._

_It hadn’t surprised Cara at all that the Lord Rahl had personally selected Denna for the task of capturing and training the Seeker. Denna was still his right hand (and there had been talk that he had finally granted her unuttered wish of gracing his bed once his interest in Cara and a few of their mutual sisters had finally waned), and she was the natural choice for such a high-profile task. As much disdain as Cara felt for the paler blonde, she had never doubted Denna’s success in doing exactly what the Lord Rahl had expected of her. In Denna’s hands, the Seeker’s breaking was, of course, inevitable._

_Nobody who valued their life could have anticipated that Mistress Denna would fail._

_Cara didn’t see her again after that; she knew the woman was still alive, because the Lord Rahl wasn’t nearly frivolous enough to have killed one so valuable to him as Denna was. No doubt, he’d have the perfect purpose for his failed right hand some time in the future; still, for the time being, Denna’s presence (and, with it, her prestigious title), disappeared from the temples after her failure. It was, Cara couldn’t help thinking, a just punishment for one so swollen on her own self-merit._

_The news was good for Cara, who climbed with lightning speed through what few ranks had stood between herself and the coveted position at Lord Rahl’s side. She would not, she knew, replace Denna (for nobody could), but she knew she was closer to it than any of her other sisters could have ever dreamed of._

_Lord Rahl was uncharacteristically kind towards Cara, professionally and personally; though she had not been given the honour of servicing him sexually since he had grown bored with her, he was closer to generous (never quite actually forgiving, but certainly more liable to turn a blind eye to her few trespasses than he was to any of her sisters’, however well-behaved they otherwise were) than she had ever believed him capable of. Not even Denna had escaped the Lord Rahl’s wrath when he was caught in the fit of a temper, whether it was her fault or not; nonetheless, and as much to Cara’s own surprise as her sisters’, he chose (for the most part) to restrain himself when Cara was the one left alone to appease his temper._

_Perhaps it was a lingering appreciation of her having provided him with a sonthat caused him to be less ferocious to her than he had been her predecessors (and, indeed, to her equals), but Cara sincerely doubted that. Truthfully, she suspected it was rather more to do with the way she, unlike her peers, was willing to stand up to him when necessary._

_Denna had been powerful, more so than Cara would ever have admitted to her face, but her definition of ‘service’ had differed greatly from Cara’s own; in Denna’s eyes, duty was defined by blind obedience. Cara, by contrast, saw it as much a part of her duty to inform the Lord Rahl that his plans were riddled with holes as it was to nod and acquiesce and do his bidding. If he told her to obey him in spite of her arguments, she would do so without hesitation or the least complaint, but she would do so knowing that her advice had been given first, and, if she failed him (which she never did), the Lord Rahl would know that she had advised him of its possibility._

_He appreciated her honesty, she was sure, if not her unwillingness to comply lemming-like with every command he issued; it was a fine line between offering helpful advice and questioning his authority, and Cara walked that line with more grace and poise than any of her sisters, before or since._

_It was only a couple of weeks after Denna failed for the second time (this time in obtaining the third Box of Orden from the Seeker and his friends, a failure that was met with as much amusement from Cara as it was with fury from the Lord Rahl) that Cara was entrusted with the task of storming the island of Valaria._

_The murmurings about a male Confessor child had been spreading for some time, but Lord Rahl had for a long time swept them aside in deference to his pursuit of the Boxes of Orden. With Denna’s failure in the latter task still a bleeding welt upon his pride, the Lord Rahl finally seemed to think it prudent to switch his attention to the matter of the rumoured male Confessor, and Cara was instructed to obtain the child at all costs._

_The Confessors, she was told, she could kill or torture as she so desired._

_Cara relished the task, and not just because of the status it represented. She hated Confessors, hated the fact that their power was the one thing in the world she could neither prepare for nor fight against. Death by confession was, in Cara’s opinion, the worst possible death there was. Dying in agony, pain beyond repression, was bad enough... but dying under the thrall of a Confessor’s power? Breathing her last tortured breath in worship and supplication to the woman who had ended her life?_

_Pain was little threat to a Mord-Sith (though Cara had heard that the agony of confession was a pain like no other), but the humiliation? The shame of a death steeped not in battle but in mindless adoration? A death where her last breath would be one of unconditional love? It soured Cara’s stomach just to think of it._

_She hadn’t planned on allowing Dahlia to go with her to Valaria; quite the contrary, in fact. An island filled with Confessors was no place for the weak, and Cara had convinced herself (despite all possible evidence to the contrary) that Dahlia was simply not a strong enough fighter for the task that lay before them._

_It was, of course, a fabrication, though nobody needed to know that. In truth, she did not want to risk seeing Dahlia confessed. Of all her sisters, Dahlia was the one that Cara believed least deserving of that particular death. And, selfishly, she knew that she could not bear to witness it._

_Dahlia, to nobody’s surprise, had other ideas._

_“You will, of course,” she said, as though her word was law, “be taking me with you.”_

_Cara chuckled. “You know that won’t happen, Dahlia,” she chided, gentle but decisive._

_Dahlia shook her head, and her expression spoke volumes of her intent._

_“I’m not asking permission, Cara,” she said, as though she were addressing a very small child. “I will be going, whether by invitation or otherwise. We have served together –_ been _together – for too many years now, Cara. All our lives, practically. You can’t deny me the chance to be there when you achieve this, the pinnacle of your station. I have earned the right to stand by your side, just as you’ve earned the right to stand by the Lord Rahl’s. You cannot deny me this.”_

_“I most certainly can,” Cara snapped at her, not liking the way she was already more than halfway convinced by her friend’s honey-smooth words._

_“But you won’t,” Dahlia returned pointedly, “will you?”_

_If she lived to be a thousand years old, Cara would never know why she acquiesced instead of disciplining Dahlia for her insolence. As it was, she tried not to think about it too much; if she dared to think, she would realise that she had been making allowances like this for her entire life, that the rock-solid foundation of strength and fortitude she’d built herself on was inherently cracked and flawed where Dahlia was involved. If she dared to think about it, even for a moment, she would realise that Dahlia was making her weak._

_“Very well,” she said instead._

_Not wanting to dwell on it, she lay waste to those thoughts entirely by making sure that Dahlia expressed her gratitude that evening, in many pleasurable ways, and over the course of a great many hours._

*

When Cara started babbling about an important child, Kahlan naturally assumed that she was talking about the one she’d carried and birthed herself.

It was only after a few excruciatingly long minutes of blissful misinterpretation, when Cara let slip the word ‘Valaria’, that the truth of what was going on became apparent, and Kahlan’s blood ran so cold that she actually began to shiver from the chill of it.

She couldn’t watch this. Not now, not _this_. Not Dennee.

Feeling as though she’d been struck with something so much more potent than an agiel, Kahlan scrambled to her feet; she wasn’t entirely sure what good it would do, but she simply couldn’t sit still a moment longer. She couldn’t be holding Cara now, couldn’t be touching her, couldn’t bring herself to be anywhere near her. Not if she was about to bear witness to what her sinking heart told her that she was.

Though she’d come to terms a long time ago with what Cara had done to Dennee, she wasn’t sure she had strength enough within her to see it played out before her eyes like a twisted puppet-show. Why hadn’t Zedd warned her about this? He had warned her about everything – the potential for pain, suffering and sex in near-equal measure, all reflected a hundredfold in the spell-blinded eyes of a woman she cared so deeply for – but, for all his foresight, he hadn’t warned her of this. He hadn’t warned her about her own sister.

He had said a great many things, Kahlan knew, but not once had he even hinted that she might be forced to witness the brutal, heartless slaughter of her sister – of _Dennee_ – at Cara’s hands.

Cara had been heartbreakingly honest in describing what she’d done to Dennee; she had tortured her, broken her again and again, made her suffer beyond suffering, and all for the crime of being a Confessor. She had admitted, freely and truthfully, that the measures she’d taken (so far beyond cruelty) had had nothing to do with Dennee’s choice to drown her son before allowing Darken Rahl to bend the child to his purposes, and everything to do with Cara’s bitter hatred for Confessors.

Some part of Kahlan had been grateful for the honesty, but that part had been overshadowed for many weeks by the reeling, violent desire to kill Cara in her sleep for what she’d done to her sister. She could have made it quick and painless, could have granted Dennee the respite of a swift death, if she had to kill her at all, but she hadn’t. She had dragged it out (so she’d explained in great detail), and made it so much more than excruciating.

The admission of the killing had, all on its own, been enough to send Kahlan into the Con Dar, and she’d very nearly destroyed Cara with her bare hands even before she even came to learn just how deeply the torture had run... and then, again, when she’d learned exactly what Cara had done to Dennee. If Richard hadn’t stopped her, if he hadn’t insisted on putting the pitiful Mord-Sith on trial instead of allowing her to be confessed as the people of Stowcroft had requested when she’d returned to her one-time home, Cara would have been dead long before now, and Kahlan would have been glad of it.

She could not relive that pain now, couldn’t let herself sit idly by and bear witness as Cara did all those things again, firsthand this time. She couldn’t. If she did, if she was forced to watch every last horrific moment of what she knew Cara had done to Dennee before she’d let her die, Kahlan wasn’t sure she would be able to keep herself from going into the Con Dar once again. And, if she did, if she lost herself to the rage that she could already feel bubbling beneath the surface of herself... this time, there would be no Richard to protect Cara, or to save her from the death it would bring with it.

Slowly, she found herself inching towards the door, creeping backwards, still unable to tear her gaze away from Cara. She would call for Zedd, she decided. She would order him to end the spell right now, force him to drag Cara out of it if that was what he needed to do, and damn the so-called ‘consequences’. Whatever they were, whatever damage they might cause, permanent or otherwise, it would still be less than the irreparable harm if she went into the blood-rage and blindly slaughtered or confessed every living soul (guilty or otherwise) within ten leagues. Yes. She would call for Zedd, and demand that he fix this.

But, as hard as she tried, she simply couldn’t bring herself to open the door. Her fingers rested on the familiar contours of the rough wood, applying some kind of pressure that wasn’t nearly enough, and she urged herself to just push it open and be done with it. Just push the door open, her screaming heart cried, step out into the hallway, call for Zedd, and end this nonsense. _Now_ , before Cara started to renember the massacre at Valaria. _Now, dammit_.

She needed to, she knew. To move, to breathe, to leave, to do anything that would grant her freedom from what she knew would come next... but she was frozen to the spot as though in the throes of the same spell that had afflicted Cara. She could no more tear herself away, however desperately she wanted to, than Cara could wake herself up and end it all herself before it reached the point of no return.

Kahlan was helpless, locked up tight in the thrall of a power so great that she could neither define nor fight it, and could do nothing but stand there, transfixed in paralysed horror, and pray to a Creator who had long since abandoned them both that Cara’s memory would be merciful and skip ahead to a moment less likely to end them both.

*

_There were very few things in the world that could strike real fear into the heart of a Mord-Sith, and all the more so when that Mord-Sith was as hardened as Cara; in all the time since joining the Sisters of the Agiel, she had never known the embrace of true fear._

_Fear was a weakness, something that foolish little girls felt before they allowed themselves to be enlightened by their true calling. Fear was a sign of small-minded cowardice, an unforgivable sin that ended without fail in punishment. Fear was something that no Mord-Sith worth her leathers would ever, under any circumstances, allow to claim her._

_Or so it was until a Confessor was involved. Then, suddenly, it became a tool for survival._

_Cara was not afraid as she stepped off the boat and onto Valaria. She was certainly not frightened, but even she was apprehensive. Uneasy. Perhaps even genuinely nervous. The penalty for failure here were far greater than simply displeasing the Lord Rahl. Failure here would be death for them all, and the very worst kind of death. Failure here, more than ever, was simply not an option._

_Thankfully, in this particular instance, the Confessors were woefully outnumbered, with barely one between three of the invading Mord-Sith; Cara had taken all possible precautions to ensure her party’s success, and graciously allowed her sisters to entertain themselves with the scattered handful of surviving Confessors as they so desired, so long as they didn’t grow too careless. It was good, she had learned, to indulge those beneath her, to let them enjoy themselves; allowing them their pleasures would yield greater loyalty over the course of her reign._

_She herself, wasted no time on such frivolities; flanked on one side by Dahlia and on the other by a similarly-ranked sister known as Triana, she went immediately after the child’s mother._

_“Where’s the boy?” Cara demanded, not really expecting a reply._

_She could feel the pulse of bloodlust roaring through the veins of her two companions; Triana, in particular, was fast growing infamous for her insatiable thirst for violence, and Cara was very much looking forward to seeing that hunger put to good use here, but now was not the time._

_They needed answers first; torture could come afterwards. And so, grudgingly but with the mission’s success at the front of her mind, she warned both of her too-eager sisters back with a businesslike glare._

_“You know she won’t answer you,” Triana growled, and Cara could taste her disdain like bitter wine on her tongue; apparently, she did not appreciate being told to curb her appetites. “She would sooner die than surrender her precious child. You know that.”_

_Their victim, the mother of the child they sought, smirked, a sheen of false bravado covering over the obvious uneasiness. “And they say Mord-Sith are stupid,” she said scathingly._

_Dahlia cracked her smartly across the face with her agiel; had it been Triana, Cara would probably have berated her for not standing back when she’d been instructed to, but this was Dahlia. They both knew that she would not be chastised, for this or for anything else._

_“You were asked a question,” she said calmly, and Cara felt a wall of pride erect itself around the part of her that knew she should have been eking out discipline. “Now answer it.”_

_“He’s dead,” the woman informed them, still smiling though Cara could see the edges of the expression cracking ever so slightly now._

_It wasn’t unease that the Confessor was covering over so expertly, Cara realised with a growing sense of unease that marked itself by a familiar churning within her. It wasn’t fear and it wasn't anxiety._

_It was grief._

_“I killed him myself,” the mother went on. “Now do as you want, you monsters. Kill us all, it won’t matter. You’ll still have failed.”_

_A low growl rumbled somewhere deep inside Cara’s chest; her first mission as Darken Rahl’s most trusted Mord-Sith, and she had failed through no fault of her own. She would make this Confessor pay for that, and she would make it last. Not blinking, she raised her agiel, eyes fixed purposefully on the woman’s, wanting to see every drop of fear as it bled from her, to hear the delicious screams of agony as they were wrenched unbidden from that place deep inside that Confessors had been taught from birth to deny existed._

_“You will suffer for this,” she snarled, teetering on the knife-edge of control. “You will know pain, the likes of which your pathetic kind cannot comprehend, much less endure.”_

_Her two companions broke into twin smiles at that; Cara knew from repeated experience exactly how enticing Dahlia found this particular side of her, and it caused her pulse to increase just slightly to see that hungry grin reflected in the eyes of the feral-hearted Triana as well wheres she stood at her other side. Surrounded as she was by such unabashed appreciation, Cara felt the bloodlust flare up in her until it was blinding, and she drew back her fist to echo the blow that Dahlia had just delivered._

_Something in the woman’s too-stoic face stopped her._

_Later, she would tell herself that it was a flicker of doubt, the ghost of an idea that she might not have been telling the truth, that perhaps the boy was still alive and hidden somewhere. Every rational bone in her body insisted that the notion was beyond absurd, but she shoved them aside in deference to the rippling assurance that told her caution was the card best played here. It made no sense, but Cara heeded it nonetheless._

_Illogical as it probably was, that must have been what had stilled her hand. It could not have been anything else. Cara’s ruthless dedication to both duty and cruelty were renowned throughout the territories, and her erotic lust for being appreciated by her underlings was even more so; with both so intimately close to her at that moment – the promise of violence before her, and the panting breaths of anticipation warming her neck from the women flanking her on either side – she could not immediately recall a time when her blood had run more wantonly than it did now. And yet, she simply could not bring herself to move._

_“Cara?” Dahlia murmured in her ear, breath hot and voice hotter. “What is it?”_

_“Perhaps she’s merely taking a moment to prepare herself,” Triana remarked wryly._

_Her voice was sharp in all the places where Dahlia’s was soft, and Cara’s addled mind was suddenly filled to bursting with visions of them both bowing their braided heads in stuttering worship of her private parts._

_“Go,” she heard herself grind out, voice almost too rough to make out even through the island’s breezy silence. “Look for the child. Leave no stone unturned. If she’s lying... if the boy is still alive and hidden somewhere, I want him found.”_

_“I shall order Mistress Nairi to do the task,” Triana said smoothly, unconsciously wetting her lips as her gaze ran the length of Cara’s agiel with indecent rapture. “She’s having far too much amusement with this one’s mate, anyway.”_

_“No,” Cara snarled, not tearing her gaze from the Confessor (and not even because of the risk of death if she did). “I did not order Mistress Nairi to do it. I gave the order to you.” She forced a benevolent smile through her inner conflict. “I want the task done well. Enthusiastic as I have no doubt Nairi is, finding a hidden infant is not the same as whoring oneself out to the nearest available source of semi-functional anatomy. I do not want to risk our dear sister being_ distracted _from her task. I trust your diligence far more than I trust hers. Go now, and do not leave me disappointed.”_

_The corners of Triana’s lips curled up at that, and she nodded her assent._

_As she departed, Dahlia quirked a confused eyebrow at Cara. “Do you not trust her?” she asked, quiet but confused._

_“Of course I do,” Cara replied. Then, without so much as a moment’s hesitation, added, “Go with her. Help her find the child.”_

_“What?” Dahlia spluttered. “I didn’t come here to search for imaginary infants. You and I both know this woman is telling the truth. Why would you send me—”_

_“Because it is my order,” Cara replied simply._

_Dahlia stared at her, slack-jawed, but Cara made it clear by the look of concentrated fury on her face that she was in no mood to be argued with (not even by the one person who could ordinarily get away with it), and Dahlia finally acquiesced to do as she was told, slinking off after Triana without another word._

_Cara knew there would be an exchange of words when they got back to the temple, and probably an exchange of blows as well (Dahlia was far more than merely chastened by the task given to her, and would voice her feelings in vivid colours on Cara’s face the moment they were in private), but she couldn’t bring herself to care just then. She had a task to finish, and it would be easier if she were left alone to see it done._

_Again, this time without her audience, she raised her agiel... and again, she found herself unable to bring it down on the Confessor’s more-than-deserving skull._

_The woman looked up at her, not merely fearless now, but actually courageous; more courageous, in fact, than Cara had ever expected a gutless Confessor would be capable of in any circumstance. The mocking smirk was still on her face, though the ragged edges (the touches of sorrow and pain and regret, nothing like fear) were growing ever more pronounced with every moment that passed._

_Cara knew those lines well, and, as she studied them with far greater intimacy than she needed to, realisation cracked like lightning across her field of vision, and she knew beyond all doubt exactly what it was that kept stilling her hand._

_She had seen that look before. She had seen it, and denied it had ever existed, burning too much like tears behind the mask of her own features as she’d gazed into the looking glass scarcely a few hours after Denna (always so efficient) had taken the Lord Rahl’s child to his chambers. Already back in her standard-issue leathers, every inch the picture of a flawless Mord-Sith, just as she had been before the child had taken up residence in her womb, she had fought back the emptiness, the loneliness, and the sorrow. She had fought back everything, willed herself to pretend nothing had ever happened, and returned to the life she had lived before._

_All those things, she saw now, equally denied, in the eyes of the male Confessor’s mother, those eyes so unlike her own._

_“You will be killed,” she said, hating the sudden indefinable thickness of her voice._

_She felt no sympathy for this woman, this Confessor, this hated enemy of Mord-Sith. She knew that, if she turned her back for less than a second, she’d find herself confessed, dying in agony whispering breathless words of supplication to her. She hated her, truly and deeply, beyond the rational and beyond humanity. She hated her, and would delight in her death. She would kill her, and enjoy it... but she could not bring herself to torture her._

_The woman had, after all, been tortured enough._

_In itself, the thought was sickening. The sentiment, so dangerously close to emotion, that it reeked of was sickening. This was not her. It was not the Cara that Dahlia and Triana had gazed upon with such lusty adoration, and it was not the Cara that they would both fall upon and worship like the deity she was the instant they returned to their temple. This was not the person she had spent her entire life striving to become._

_This person, this pathetic coward, unable even to torture one of her most hated enemies, unable to see justice done against a Confessor – the very Confessor who had caused her to fail for the first time in her life! – this woman was no Mord-Sith. She was a pitiful heathen. Worthless, useless. She was a weak, feeling-driven child. An infant. A crying, mewling, helpless infant. She was... she was..._

_...she was fighting back tears that should never have existed, unshed for a boy that should never have been conceived._

_Whoever this pitiful woman was, she decided, she was a product of this island, this hated island filled with Confessors. She was a victim of confession. She would make sure, when they were done here, when all the Confessors were dead, that this woman that was not Cara would be slaughtered too._

_Nobody would ever know about this moment of unforgivable weakness. Nobody would ever know, because the one witness to it was about to be slain at her hand._

_“Get on with it, then,” the Confessor snapped._

_Cara clenched her jaw. Her fist. Every muscle in her body._

_“I will make it quick.”_

*

Kahlan let out a strangled whimper.

This was wrong. Everything about it was wrong. She remembered, vividly, the night Cara had told her the details of what had taken place on Valaria; to her credit (what little of it there was), Cara hadn’t been proud, but she had been excruciatingly honest about it, and she had stated in no uncertain terms that Dennee had suffered horribly at her hands, that she had made sure of it. She had wanted vengeance, vengeance against the entire race of Confessors, and against Dennee in particular for having caused her to fail in her duty to Darken Rahl.

It had been violent and bloody, a fact confirmed several months later by Dennee herself after Denna had returned her to the land of the living in the body of a prostitute (something that, when the initial shock and pain and euphoria had worn off, had struck both sisters as hilarious in its irony). Cara had kept her distance, Kahlan remembered, and the look on Dennee’s face whenever she’d glanced upon the Mord-Sith had chilled Kahlan to her very soul; it was one of the main reasons why Kahlan had taken so long to accept that her feelings for Cara were changing, that she was no longer seeing the woman as the soulless monster who had done those things to her sister. She’d remembered the look on Dennee’s face when she looked at Cara, and the conflict she’d felt in that moment had scarred for a very long time.

Apparently, it was different in the other world. Apparently (and the thought caused a dagger of pain to pierce her heart), Dahlia’s Cara had been blessed with empathy, and had been kind to Dennee. It wouldn’t, she knew, change the end result... but it would mean that Dennee hadn’t suffered. That, somewhere out there, in one of so many countless worlds, there was a Dennee who had died swiftly and painlessly.

Kahlan had expected to want Cara dead after being forced to watch this, but she didn’t. As much pain as it caused to know that, as she stood there watching, Cara was in her own mind killing Dennee with her bare hands, it eased her troubled soul to know that she was doing it with honour. And it hurt (more deeply than she’d ever admit in the moment when her thoughts should have been so exclusively with her siste) to know that Cara had again been right in thinking that her own life had been a soulless one by comparison to what it could have been with Dahlia in it.

Never, in all the time they’d known each other, had Kahlan thought even for a moment that Cara might have ever been anything more or less than what she was. And never, not even once, after learning what she’d done to Dennee, had she thought that there might be a Cara somewhere who had found it within herself to be merciful.

“I don’t know you,” she heard herself whisper, her breathing shaky.

It wasn’t the first time she’d said it, but this time it held an completely different meaning than it had before (so many hours ago that she could barely even remember it by this point).

This time, it wasn’t Cara’s true heartlessness she was seeing for the first time; it was her true heart.

Where she sat, Cara pulled back, and Kahlan was surprised to see that she was shivering. It wasn’t the trembling of emotional exhaustion that she herself had been victim to for almost longer than she could remember, nor was it the shuddering of physical strain that had wracked Cara’s body so many times before now, for a variety of reasons; whatever it was, it was most definitely something she hadn’t seen in Cara before, and, as hard as she tried, she couldn’t define it.

Part of her wanted to go back to the Mord-Sith’s side and pull her once more into her arms, kiss her hair, soothe her, hold her until the shaking had subsided completely... but another part of her (for the moment, the larger part) was still racked with hurt over having witnessed once again the death of her sister at Cara’s blood-soaked hands.

It was different this time, she knew, so completely different... but it was still, fundamentally, the same. It was still the brutal and cold-blooded murder of Dennee, of Kahlan’s only sister, and, though it didn’t bring out the Con Dar as she had feared it might, the pain it caused was still very real. And, as much as she wanted to be there for Cara, she could not bring herself to offer the comfort she knew her friend needed just then, even though she herself needed it just as badly. It hurt too much.

“It had to be done,” Cara breathed, so close to broken.

“I know,” Kahlan replied softly, and let her tears fall.

*

_Cara insisted on leaving Valaria as swiftly as possible after that. None of her sisters seemed to mind the command when it came, several even going so far as to readily affirm that they’d grown bored of playing with the corpses of so many filthy Confessors. They returned to the People’s Palace together, accomplished in the slaughter they’d rained down upon the island, but empty-handed and knowing that all the dead Confessors in the world would not assuage the wrath of Darken Rahl when he found out that his prize had been denied him._

_Their party was large, seeming all the more so for the knowledge that they had not sustained a single fatality on their side, but the punishment (they all knew) would be for Cara to endure alone. She had led the mission, and it had been her responsibility – not any of the others’ – to ensure its success._

_To her surprise, Lord Rahl was merciful. Actually merciful, not simply taking on the appearance of it. He didn’t order that she be hung over the blood pit for failing to obtain the boy, nor did he order it done to any of her sisters for allowing the failure. He did not raise his voice or berate Cara for not having achieved what she had promised, nor did he do any of the countless things she had anticipated and prepared herself for._

_He was, when all was said and done, surprisingly accepting of her explanation, and dismissed her with a curt nod and a few short words of appreciation (honest, actual appreciation) for having destroyed the Confessors so efficiently. Surprised, but grateful, Cara had thanked him for his mercy, and thought no more of it._

_Less than two days later, Dahlia was relocated, sent away to one of the most remote temples in all of the Midlands._

_Cara, as she found herself flooded with unfamiliar and unwanted emptiness, realised that punishment did not always come in the form of physical abuse._

_It was a clever punishment, to be sure, and one that Cara supposed she should have anticipated, but (through sheer stubbornness and unwillingness to bend, coupled perhaps with a desperate desire to banish those feelings that had been surfacing within her ever since the birth of the child) she refused to let it affect her._

_She moved on with haste, casting Dahlia from her mind. Dahlia, and her infectious lips and her talented tongue and the way she always knew exactly how to offer Cara the comfort that she neither wanted nor needed (but which she relished nonetheless). Dahlia, with her endless pleasures and her willingness to submit just enough to make Cara feel more powerful than anyone else in the world. Dahlia. Cast, like a cobweb from Cara’s mind as though she’d never been there._

_Within less than a week, she had taken Triana to her bed._

_The transition was a difficult one to adapt to, but Cara excelled in adjustment, and soon came to appreciate Triana for her own breed of diligence. Triana was rough and untamed; she refused to yield or submit or allow Cara those flashes of authority that she had enjoyed so frequently with Dahlia. She refused to do as she was instructed, and yet she managed to always leave Cara satisfied in spite of that refusal (and, being so much more aggressive in every way, demanded the same satisfaction in kind)._

_Triana, unlike Dahlia, would not allow herself to be denied, and Cara found herself addicted to the give-and-take of what they shared, every bit as much as she had been addicted to Dahlia’s unconditional submission._

_It was different, at times confusing, but Cara certainly wasn’t complaining. The change would be good for her, she decided. She needed to be free of willingness and compassion, free of the countless bad habits she’d overlooked in Dahlia for too many years. It was a cleansing, a purging of the weakness within herself, the weakness that had caused her to spare a Confessor the suffering she so deserved._

_If this was to be Cara’s punishment, she would take it as a lesson as well. She would learn great things, she was sure, from the unique services that Triana offered... and she would come out all the more powerful for them._

_Within a matter of weeks, Dahlia had been cast to the very furthest recesses of her mind. By the time those weeks had spread out into months, and Lord Rahl summoned Cara and her sisters with news that the Seeker of Truth had somehow obtained all three Boxes of Orden and the Book of Counted Shadows required to use them, even that tiny corner of her mind had been filled with duty and honour and Triana. When she was instructed by Lord Rahl to do whatever it took to obliterate the Seeker, Cara did so with not a single thought in her mind of the old friend she had shared so much of her life with._

_Dahlia may have only been relocated to the other side of the empire, but, to Cara, she was dead._

_At long last, her thoughts were free of the troubled pain that had tickled at their edges for so long, the alien sentiments and undesired longing. She was free, at last, of all the things that had made her weak and helpless and desperate, all the things that were so unlike the Mord-Sith she knew herself to be. If it was a punishment, she couldn’t help thinking, it was most certainly a rewarding one. Finally, she was free from the softness of Dahlia’s influence._

_Her mind was a blank slate once more, cut loose from the fetters of feeling... and, this time, she would not allow it be tainted._


	16. Chapter 16

It was a long time before the tide of Kahlan’s tears finally stemmed, and longer still before she could summon the strength to cross the room and return (albeit with a depth of hesitation that weighed heavily on her) to Cara’s side.

For her part, Cara had spent the entire duration in silence, and Kahlan could tell by the look on her face (distant and lost, as though she were asleep without having lost consciousness) that it would be some time yet before she spoke again. She didn’t know, nor did she particularly care, what these occasional periods of extended silence meant, or what Cara was going through when she wasn’t sharing her experience in a too-loud voice with whoever happened to be in the room... but, this time, Kahlan was more relieved than worried by the Mord-Sith’s lapse into wordless meditation. 

Part of her suspected, though she knew Cara would deny it, that these silences were Cara’s own mental efforts to take a moment of recovery from the relentless influx of false memories; Kahlan wasn’t sure exactly how much strain the spell was exerting over her psyche, but she knew how deep the pressure was on her own, and she wasn’t the one enduring its effects. It made sense, she supposed, if _she_ needed time to recover, that Cara might need some as well, however fervently the Mord-Sith would insist that she didn’t _need_ anything. If she were honest, though, she was trying as hard as she could not to think about it at all.

Sighing shakily, she sat herself down beside Cara again, keeping about half a foot of distance between them; as much as she wanted the comfort of touch right then, she didn’t quite trust herself to lay a hand on Cara while emotional conflict and thoughts of Dennee were still tugging like quicksand at her heart. There were so many different thoughts, so many different emotions,each one contradicting the last and each one more profound and more dazzling; impossible as it was, the only thing Kahlan wanted in all the world just then was to know how she truly felt about it all.

She remembered Dennee’s face after she had been resurrected, the depth of incurable hatred that she’d felt for Cara, the inescapable knowledge that there was nothing any of them could ever do that would make up for what had happened on Valaria, or for the suffrage she’d endured at Cara’s hand; had the Dennee in the other Cara’s world been so unforgiving, Kahlan wondered, or had a swift death eased her thirst for vengeance?

All of a sudden, Kahlan wanted the spell to be over. Not because she wanted to see Cara’s suffering end, and not because she wanted to her own to (though she wanted both of those things as well), but, more than anything else, because she had questions. Countless questions, more and more with every passing moment; questions that, though she could search the whole world for the rest of her life, only Cara (only _that_ Cara) would ever be able to answer. 

She wanted to know what Dennee’s face had looked like in the moments before she died. She wanted to know whether she’d realised just how remarkable a gift it was to be granted a swift and painless death from a Mord-Sith, and whether she’d had any idea at all that, in another world not so different from her own, she had been forced to suffer in unending agony, just as Cara would have suffered if she’d been confessed. The parallel – Mord-Sith and Confessor, suffering and suffering – was not lost on Kahlan, and she shivered.

Far more than that, though, she wanted to look into Cara’s eyes. Not blinded by the sightless white film of the spell, but alive and aflame as they usually were. She wanted to look into those eyes, Cara’s eyes, and see the regret that she knew deep in her heart was there. Suddenly, it wasn’t enough just to know it existed; it wasn’t enough to hear it, or to see a flash of it in Cara’s face when she was speaking to phantoms of her nonexistent sisters. She wanted to see it – really and truly see it, vivid and vibrant – and to drink it down from those eyes, those eyes that she knew were capable of so much feeling and so much purity despite the things they’d seen.

She missed Cara, she realised. The woman had been in the room with her the whole time... and yet, somehow, she missed her.

Finally, and with an aching gradualness that was almost tangible, still conflicted as she was by her feelings, she leaned over and let her head fall onto the Mord-Sith’s shoulder. Cara, of course, made no complaint.

Through everything she’d seen thus far, Kahlan had been Cara’s support, holding her through the pain and taking care of her, holding her and watching her even through these never-ending silences, doing everything that Zedd had told her to and more besides, caring for her in every possible way. Cara had needed her through this, and she had stepped up and been everything for her (notwithstanding that single heart-stopping moment when Richard had needed to step in, that one moment of imperfection that Kahlan was still torn apart by guilt over).

But now, Kahlan was the one who needed Cara to be her support; she needed Cara to snap out of the spell, to open her eyes and see her and tell her that she’d found everything she’d been searching for, to collapse with grief and guilt and to finally be human.

She needed Cara, not lifeless and learning, but whole and complete and _hers_.

Unconsciously, but with the same sense of almost-awareness that told Kahlan she probably knew far more of what was going on around her than Zedd would have either of them believe, Cara shifted. It wasn’t much of a shift, barely one at all, but suddenly her body was tilted towards Kahlan and, though her arms still lay loose at her sides, they were more welcoming than they had been a moment before. Open, almost, and Kahlan’s heart stilled at the sight of it. Similarly, though her eyes were as unseeing and void as they had been for as long as the spell had been in effect, Kahlan was sure there was a sudden softness at their edges that hadn’t been there before. It was improbably, possibly impossible, and yet it seemed so real. And so Kahlan, in such desperate need of human contact, allowed herself to see things that she knew weren’t really there.

Taking the hint offered by Cara’s shifting body language, Kahlan allowed her head to slide, slowly but surely, down from the other woman’s shoulder and into her lap.

It would only be for a moment, she decided, trying not to lose herself to the embrace of warmth. Just until she could regain some of the strength she’d had at the beginning of all this, just until she could stop picturing the look on Dennee’s face as she died, and the look on Cara’s – _that_ Cara’s – face as she did the deed, until she stopped imagining the haunted empathy in both their eyes as they stared at each other, so alike and yet so violently different. Just until the world stopped turning.

She had no idea how long they stayed like that. Cara, locked up in ominous silence, and Kahlan drawing both comfort and pain from the rhythmic shift of their mutual breathing as she lay in her lap, knowing with bittersweet certainty that, if Cara ever found out about this, she would drive an agiel through both their hearts – Kahlan’s for initiating the act of unforgivable intimacy, and her own for not having snapped out of the spell solely to put a stop to it.

The notion made Kahlan laugh, but also filled her with a sense of sadness that she could neither explain nor understand; would that world’s Cara have been so quick to meet a calming embrace with acts of violence? Would her Cara still be so quick to do so when she came out of the spell? And, if she wasn’t, if she did lose that soulless edge, the wild mark of ferocity that made her who she was... would Kahlan miss it?

The line between the two was so blurred, so hazy, so intangible. The Cara she knew and the Cara she didn’t, the soulless and the softened. Given the choice, would Kahlan truly sacrifice all the things she knew in her own Cara – the very worst of the woman she’d come to care about – for one who was thoroughly alien to her?

Blessedly, and much to her unspoken relief, her train of thought was derailed before it could descend too far into the maudlin by a soft knock at the door.

“Richard?” she called out.

It struck her, a moment too late, exactly how high-pitched her voice was, and she scrambled to her feet as quickly as she could, straightening herself like a guilty schoolboy who’d been caught trying to peek down his teacher’s blouse. She didn’t know why she felt so ashamed (what harm was there in resting for a moment in a friend’s lap, really?), and yet the thought of letting Richard catch her in that position left her horrified.

“Can we come in?” the Seeker’s voice replied, simultaneously affirming that it was him and informing her by his use of the plural that he’d brought Zedd along with him.

“Of course!” Kahlan squeaked, still a little too close to yelping as she brushed off her clothing and stared as innocently as she could at the wall. “Why wouldn’t you be able to?” she went on, grimacing even as the torrent of words poured unchecked from her lips. “What in the Creator’s name did you think we were doing?”

The door creaked open and Richard stepped through with both hands raised in a gesture of surrender.

“Just checking,” he said, sounding a little baffled, and Kahlan sighed at the puzzled wideness of his eyes.

“Sorry,” she told him, and he dismissed the point with a wave. “It’s been a long...”

She trailed off then, as the realisation struck that she had no idea how long it had been, how many hours had passed since the last time Richard had visited them.

“It’s been... difficult,” she finished in the end, lamely, and massaged her temples to stave off the headache that threatened.

How was it possible, she wondered, that Richard could make things so complicated without even having to utter a word?

Predictably, albeit well-intentioned, the Seeker was by her side in an instant, not touching her but watching with concern as she fought off the pounding behind her eyes. “Are you all right?”

He spoke gently, unassumingly, certainly without intent, and Kahlan had no idea why she suddenly felt her jaw clench with irritation. Of their own accord, she found her eyes darting back towards Cara, who was blessedly still shrouded in silence, though she’d taken to twitching a bit. It was almost as if she could sense the sudden intrusion, and was expressing her dissatisfaction in the only way she could; though she knew it was yet another product of her over-active imagination, Kahlan was simultaneously amused and disturbed by the thought.

“I’m not the one you should be asking,” she said, far more tensely than she should have, in answer to Richard’s question; he was only trying to help, she reminded herself, and it wasn’t fair of her to vent her frustrations on him. “I’m fine,” she amended, a little bit more gently. “I’m just worried about her, that’s all. She’s so...”

She trailed off, unable to find words. Richard, for his part, finally seemed to remember that the Mord-Sith existed, and his gaze softened as it followed the line of Kahlan’s to rest on her.

“Has she...” he started, then coughed uneasily and glanced at Zedd as the wizard quirked a worried eyebrow. “Was there any more... uh...” He gestured helplessly, unwilling to say the word, even though they both knew what he meant.

“No,” Kahlan replied, too quickly, then sighed and corrected herself; she’d learned too many times before never to try and lie to the Seeker of Truth. “A little. She’s all right now, though. It’s over now.”

“Find out what was wrong?” he asked, lowering his voice. “What caused it?”

Kahlan’s breath caught in her throat. She hadn’t expected the question, and it caught her off-guard; if she was honest, she hadn’t expected that Richard would care so much, even though she knew him well enough to realise it was unfair of her to think that way. Every fibre of her being screamed at her to answer with honesty, to tell him what she knew, to unburden herself of those haunting words ( _with child_ ), and the knowledge that came with it... but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Not without Cara’s consent.

Cara had known that Kahlan would be witnessing everything, every last part of her other self’s life. She had known that before she’d started, and had explicitly told Kahlan that it didn’t bother her. She had never, at any point, said the same of Richard, and Kahlan would never betray Cara’s trust by revealing now (without even a thought for the damage it might cause) what she had learned. Whether or not Richard deserved to know what had caused the unpleasantness he’d been so quick to help her through, she wasn’t sure, but it wasn’t Kahlan’s decision to make, and she would not tell him.

Richard didn’t need to know that, in a world not so different to their own, Cara had carried and birthed a son – an heir – for his twisted brother. He didn’t need to know that Cara had served Darken Rahl in far more ways than simply marching into battle for him or breaking little girls; he didn’t need to know that she’d been his pet, his favourite, and the mother of his child. He didn’t need to know exactly what had caused Cara’s suffering, the nausea he had seen in her. He didn’t need to know anything.

“No,” she said, at long last, unable to meet his enquiring gaze, even as she knew that he would decipher the lie from that in itself. “Bad meat, I guess. You know what Cara’s like when it comes to food; she’s worse than Zedd. She’d eat anything, and not spare a thought for what it might be doing to her insides...”

Zedd scowled, seemingly offended by the insinuation that someone might be worse than him in the field of gastronomic recklessness. Kahlan supposed he was probably justified in feeling so insulted; in truth, nobody in all the Midlands was quite so bad as the old wizard when it came to pure unabashed gluttony, but the lie was a necessary one, and Kahlan intended to stick with it, doggedly, until such a point as she was granted permission (by the one person who mattered) to tell the truth of it.

An uncomfortable silence descended on the room after that; Kahlan could tell by Richard’s face that he’d seen right through the lie, just as she’d expected he would, and there seemed to be an internal struggle playing out between his desire to know what was really going on and his respect for the privacy of his two friends. He was a wise man, one of the many reasons why Kahlan loved him so deeply, and she knew he wouldn’t push her for answers she wasn’t willing to give, but knowing that didn’t lessen the pain of knowing that she was hurting him by lying in the first place.

“She’s all right now,” Kahlan said in a semi-successful attempt at breaking the tension and cutting off Richard’s internal conflict before either side could win. “That’s what matters, isn’t it?” 

The question was really aimed more at Zedd than it was at Richard, and the wizard nodded his agreement.

“You’ve done a magnanimous job,” he affirmed, fondness colouring the words for a heartbeat or two, and then he grew uncharacteristically solemn. “I can’t imagine how difficult this must be for you...”

Unbidden, Kahlan’s temper flared up, threatening to consume her. She wanted to take the wizard by the collar, throw him against the nearest wall and tell him that he had no idea how true those words were, how even his wildest imaginings would fall short of how _difficult_ it had truly been. She wanted him to know, everything, all of it, and to apologise to her just as he’d apologised to Cara; it was her suffrage now, as well, and he had no idea just how deep the river of it ran. He was right; even if he lived another thousand lifetimes, he could not imagine it.

The urge to raise her voice and her hands in genuine anger against the wizard frightened her; Zedd had done a great many questionable things in the time she’d known him (and a great many more before then, she knew), but she had never truly wanted to hurt him like she did now. And, she supposed, she didn’t _truly_ want to hurt him now... but she couldn’t deny (though she did manage to suppress) the violent impulses that coursed through her veins at his apologetic and understated words, nor could she suppress the urgent need to make him understand the extent of what he had done.

She’d been spending too long with Cara, she decided, taking a deep breath to banish the last of the unwanted thoughts. All the violence and fury and hatred, all the blood that had been shed and lost and relished on all sides... it made sense, she supposed, that some of Cara’s primal Mord-Sith instincts would have rubbed off, even just briefly, on Kahlan.

“It’s not been easy,” she admitted at last, with an evenness that was far too forced to be believable, and turned her back on the two men, allowing the cracked off-white plane of the wall to steady her. “The things she’s done, Zedd... you just can’t...”

“No,” Zedd agreed, sounding genuinely regretful.

At the look on his face, the revenant anger bled out of Kahlan; he sounded as though he honestly would have taken every ounce of both women’s suffering into himself if he could, and that soothed her somewhat. Not enough to forgive him, not enough that she trusted herself to face him again, but just enough to ease her back a little from the edge of fury-driven oblivion.

“I’m so terribly sorry,” he whispered mournfully.

It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. Not ever.

“I know,” she told him, because she did. “Thank you.”

“You look exhausted,” Zedd observed, changing the subject with his usual fluidity. “You should go outside and get some fresh air. Enjoy the fine weather.” Kahlan opened her mouth to protest, but he held up a hand. “I know you want to stay with her. I don’t blame you. But you’ll be no good to her if you’re too exhausted to think, Kahlan. She’s a practical woman; she’ll understand if you leave her with me for half an hour while you replenish your energy and get your strength back.”

“I’m not leaving her,” Kahlan said, with as much firmness as she could muster.

She wasn’t exhausted, she told her herself. She was just stressed. Drained by what had happened with Dennee. Confused by the cavalcade of feelings and the conflicting Caras. She wasn’t exhausted, she was just a little overwhelmed. It wasn’t the same thing.

With characteristic predictability, Richard placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“He’s got a point,” he said, and Kahlan hated him all the more because she knew he was right. “We don’t know how much longer this thing’s going to last, and you can’t stay here forever without taking a break. You’re not invincible, Kahlan. You’re human, just like the rest of us. You need to rest, eat something, get out of this room for a little while. Look at her,” he finished with a wan smile. “She won’t even notice you’re gone.”

“You can’t possibly know what she notices!” Kahlan exploded.

Immediately, she found herself wishing she could take it back, and she hated herself for that almost more than she hated herself for having said it in the first place. These fits of unnecessary temper were exactly the reason why Richard and Zedd were right and she was wrong, though she’d never admit the fact aloud; more than that, though, she simply couldn’t bring herself to face the possibility that leaving Cara’s side (even briefly) might, in actual fact, be the right thing to do.

“Kahlan,” Richard said patiently, and Kahlan made a note, when this was all over and she was thinking clearly again, to thank him for his perseverance. “You need a break. If Cara was... if she was with us, instead of wherever she is, we both know she’d be telling you the same thing. You need to think about yourself for a minute or two. You can’t keep going like this forever, without rest. Nobody can.”

“She has to,” Kahlan pointed out, suddenly more upset than irritated. “She doesn’t get to take a break just because she might be getting tired. She has to keep going, pain on pain, torture on torture, everything on top of everything else until there’s nothing elft. She doesn’t get a break from any of this, so why should I?”

“Because punishing yourself won’t make it easier on her,” Richard told her without hesitation, and Kahlan flinched. “I know you want to protect her from everything, Kahlan, but this was her choice. She’s a Mord-Sith. She’s strong. She can handle herself for half an hour without—”

“All right!” Kahlan interrupted, voice much more shrill than she’d either intended or expected, but she could not allow him to finish his sentence. Unclenching her fists where they’d balled without her knowledge at her sides, she swallowed a lungful of much-needed air. “All _right_ , Richard.”

She had no idea where the sudden acquiescence had come from, only that she couldn’t stand to let him keep going as if he knew the first thing about any of what had happened. He’d been there for five minutes, averted a single crisis, and he was speaking as if he’d seen everything that Kahlan had. As if he’d seen anything at all, beyond a physical reaction to something he didn’t even have the right to know the real truth about. As if he knew what Cara could handle, as if he knew what Kahlan needed. As if he knew anything at all.

It surprised her, how little anger she felt. She should have wanted to shake him by the shoulders, to tell him in no uncertain terms, just as she’d wanted to tell Zedd, that he couldn’t possibly understand the first thing about it. But the feelings that flowed through her now were so unlike the ones she’d been anticipating that it stole her breath. She didn’t want to do or say anything to Richard, to prove him wrong or to tell him that he was. She didn’t want to stop him, she just wanted him to stop. That was the only thing she wanted in the world... for him to stop talking.

“Kahlan,” Zedd said, cutting cruelly into her thoughts. “I promise you, on my reputation as a wizard of the First Order—” Kahlan bit back the urge to tell him just how little that reputation meant to her just then. “—I’ll keep her safe. No harm will come to her as long as I’m here. I promise you.”

She wanted to point out that he’d already broken that promise when he caused all this to happen in the first place, but she didn’t have the energy to argue with him, just as she didn’t have the strength to wish harm on Richard for his presumptions. It was just further evidence, she knew, of the fact that the men were right, that she did need to take a break and distance herself from the thoughts and feelings and the woman who was the source of them all... though knowing it didn’t make it any easier for her to endure, and understanding it didn’t make it any less frustrating for her to accept.

“Just go for a walk,” Zedd suggested, settling himself down on the bed and gazing with tormented sorrow down at Cara’s prone form. “Enjoy the weather, or have something to eat.” He smiled kindly. “Both of you.”

“Look after her, Zedd,” Kahlan heard herself mumbling as Richard ushered her out of the door.

She had intended it as a demand, an insistence, even a threat... but it came out as the plaintive plea of someone who barely had the strength to form the words at all, much less to mean them as fervently she did.

“I will,” he confirmed, oblivious to her faltering. “I owe her at least that much.”

As they left the room, Kahlan practically pushed by Richard, she was sure she heard the wizard choking back tears.

Weighted down as she was by frustration and a bone-deep weariness that she would deny to her dying day, Kahlan let Richard guide her down the rickety staircase and out into the tavern. He was smiling as he directed her to a chair and pulled it out for her, and Kahlan countered it with as close to genuine warmth as she could muster.

She didn’t criticise his efforts at chivalry, though they both knew she didn’t need him to treat her like something fragile, instead accepting the gesture for what it was and letting her head drop down onto the sticky wooden tabletop as soon as she was seated. Looking something between affectionate and concern, Richard patted her shoulder and sauntered over to the bar with his typical Seeker charisma.

“I know you don’t want to be here,” he said when he returned, bearing two drinks and the promise of food to come, “but try and make the best of it. You need this.”

“I know,” Kahlan agreed, if only to keep him from pressing the matter further. “But that doesn’t mean I have to like it. If I miss something... if something happens to her while I’m here...” She trailed off, unable to think about it.

“It won’t,” he said. “And, even if it does, Zedd’s with her. He’s better-equipped than any of us to deal with whatever problems the spell might throw up.” Gently, he covered her hand with his own, and Kahlan sighed softly at the small comfort that gesture brought. “He may play the fool, but we both know he’s cleverer than all of us combined. There’s nothing he can’t handle... unless you count his own ego and an empty stomach.” He smiled. “So you can stop worrying for five minutes. All right?”

Kahlan exhaled, sipping her drink to cover the way she felt her face beginning to crumble. “Not really,” she sighed. “I’m not sure that I’ll ever be able to stop worrying again.”

Concern flickered behind Richard’s eyes, but he knew her well enough to keep from voicing it aloud. Instead, he took a long swallow of his own beverage, then placed it on the table between them, chewing on his bottom lip and looking oddly thoughtful.

He wanted to ask, she knew. He wanted to ask her why she’d lied to him, about the nausea and about everything else. He wanted to ask what she’d seen in Cara, wanted to know everything that he’d missed, not because he was nosy, but because he cared.

He wanted to be there for Cara, to be able to offer her everything that Kahlan could, but she could see by the clouds in his eyes that he knew it was impossible. He knew she wouldn’t tell him, whether he asked or not, and knew that it would only cause a rift between them if he did. And he knew, she could tell, that it didn’t matter anyway. Cara hadn’t asked for him; she’d asked for Kahlan. All the insight in the world wouldn’t change that.

“Kahlan,” he said at long last, after chewing his bottom lip and pondering his options for more minutes than Kahlan could count. “If you need to talk about it, I’m here. You know that, right?” She raised an eyebrow, nodding, but he went on anyway. “I know you don’t want to, I know you want to handle it yourself, and I know you probably think that’s what she wants too...”

“It _is_ what she wants,” Kahlan pointed out roughly.

Richard smiled. “But I’m here anyway,” he pressed softly. “If you need me.”

Kahlan smiled with honest warmth, and caressed the back of his hand with her thumb. “I always need you, Richard.”

Though they both knew he hadn’t meant it in that way, he couldn’t conceal the boyish – almost shy – grin that touched his features, and Kahlan felt some almost-forgotten part of her starting to melt at the sight of him. She did love Richard, she truly did, and there was nobody else in all the world who could come so close to setting her mind at ease when it was in such a conflicted state as it was at that moment. He wasn’t perfect, and he wasn’t what she wanted, but he was everything she needed just then, and he had reached her despite her most vociferous objections. She was lucky, more than lucky, to have him.

By the time the barkeep brought the meal Richard had so graciously ordered for them, Kahlan was feeling somewhat better. Not replenished, not exactly, but definitely a little calmer. Richard’s presence had that effect on her, she supposed, though some corner of her mind was still stubbornly filled with visions of Cara in various states of distress or trauma or rage or pleasure.

It was the latter of these that, unsurprisingly, caused her the most discomfort, and she found herself fighting on more than one occasion to suppress blushes or whimpers.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Richard asked, catching the way she coughed after a particularly vivid memory flashed across her mind like a lightning strike. His eyes, though they still shone with the love that seemed to radiate from him like starlight whenever he looked at her, were dark with concern, and he was frowning. “You seem a little... distracted.”

“I’m all right,” she told him tiredly, allowing herself a sigh. “Zedd was right, that’s all. Some of the things I’ve seen in her... some of the things I know she’s done...” She shivered, and it had nothing to do with the horrors and brutality she knew Richard thought it did. “I’ll never forget them, Richard. Every part of me knows I need to, but I’m not sure I can. And if she ever—”

“Kahlan,” he interrupted gently. “It’s what she wants. She wants you to see her, and _all_ of her. She wants you to understand her. Even the very worst of her.”

“It’s not the worst of her,” Kahlan burst out before she could stop herself.

Unable to bear the empathy on Richard’s face for a moment longer, she squeezed her eyes shut, clenching her jaw hard enough to hurt. She had to keep going now that she’d started, and she knew it, but that didn’t mean she needed to look at him when she did.

“It’s not the worst,” she repeated, barely above a whisper. “It’s the _best_ of her.”

Though her eyes were closed, she could feel Richard starting in surprise, and pictured him stopping in his tracks with a spoonful of stew halfway between the bowl and his mouth, eyes wide with some combination of shock and confusion; had her heart not been so tumultuous in that instant, she would have laughed.

“The best of her?” Richard echoed, sounding almost sad. “I thought _we_ brought out the best in her.”

“So did I,” Kahlan admitted, forcing herself to open her eyes and meet his gaze. “But she was right. This Dahlia... the things she did for her, and the side of her that she brought out... you can’t imagine the kind of influence she had, Richard. I didn’t know Mord-Sith were capable of those things, those _feelings_ , but this woman was. And she brought them out in Cara, time and time again, with no effort at all.”

Richard quirked a brow. “So they _were_ intimate?” he asked, and Kahlan actually did laugh at the poorly-concealed note of eagerness in his voice. “I mean... uh...”

“You may be the Seeker of Truth, Richard,” Kahlan said when her amusement had subsided enough for a return to seriousness, “but sometimes you’re an overgrown schoolboy.”

For his part, Richard seemed so delighted at having succeeded in making her laugh, it didn’t bother him in the least that it came at his expense. “So they were?”

“Yes,” Kahlan replied, exasperated; in her mind’s eye, she saw Cara yelling at her in outrage for not waiting until she was conscious to see the look on Richard’s face when she told him. “Yes, Richard, they were intimate.” The words caused her to sober, and the laughter died in her throat. “Cara was right. We can’t understand how much it changed what she became. What Zedd did to her, Richard... what he took away from her...”

“I know,” Richard said, all traces of mirth and boyish glee gone from him. “I know. But there’s nothing we can do about it. He’s sorry and he regrets it, like I’ve never seen him regret anything... but he can’t change what’s been done. We can’t undo the mistakes we make, Kahlan, and he can’t undo this one.”

Kahlan knew it was true, but that didn’t fill the hole that had settled inside her. She tried to fill it by finishing the meal, but, good as it was, it had little effect. Richard was right; there really was nothing they could do, beyond hoping and praying that the spell would give Cara the closure she needed to cast off the longing for that never-lived existence she’d been deprived of. But that didn’t stop her wishing, wishing like she’d never wished for anything before in all her life, that she could somehow make those things real... that she could somehow give Cara all the love that had been taken from her.

“It breaks my heart,” she said aloud. “To know that somewhere out there, in some other world, there’s a Cara who knows how it feels to be truly intimate. Not just physically, but completely. Like us.”

Her eyes met Richard’s across the table, and he lifted her hand to press a delicate kiss to her fingertips; the flutter of emotion that those little gestures always sent through her was different this time, sharper and more distinct. Where it had always been sweet, now there was a hard-to-define almost-bitterness to it, and she didn’t know whether it heightened her love for him or made it sting.

“What we have, Richard...” she went on, casting the odd feeling aside. “The way she looks at us when we kiss or touch, or even just smile at each other...” She sighed. “She deserves to understand how it feels.”

“She will,” Richard told her. “The spell—”

“—isn’t real!” Kahlan had to bite down hard on a piece of potato to keep from shouting the words loud enough to bring the local constables running. “Whatever she remembers, whatever she feels, whatever happens, it’s not _real_.”

“It’s real enough for her,” Richard said, very softly. “It’s what she wanted, Kahlan. Not to live it, not to have it. To _remember_ it.”

“And what if that’s not enough?”

As she’d expected, Richard had no answer for that; he may have had the clearer head, but he didn’t know Cara. Not like Kahlan did. He knew her as the man who wanted to be her friend, who tried to be an equal to her, but who had always found himself treated like the Lord Rahl he’d told her a thousand times he wasn’t. Cara cared for Richard, Kahlan knew, deeply and fundamentally, but she did not trust him with the innermost recesses of herself; she was honour-bound to serve him, and that meant never allowing a shade of her true self to slip through in his presence. The Lord Rahl, in Cara’s eyes, had no use for a weak Mord-Sith; it was the way it had always been, and she’d had the value of strength beaten into her too many times now to start allowing even a flicker of humanity to risk destroying what she’d worked so hard to become in the eyes of her lord.

It was only in Kahlan’s company that emotion was allowed. If she stopped to think about it, Kahlan realised it had been that way almost from the moment they’d met. Certainly, from the moment she’d come so painfully close to confessing Cara after her trespasses in Stowcroft; she remembered too vividly the lone tear that had crept its way down Cara’s face like a ghost, remembered the pain in the Mord-Sith’s eyes, the depth of remorse that had been so overpowering she couldn’t conceal it, even when facing the one person in all the world she should have stood defiant against. They had both known that Kahlan couldn’t use her skills as a Confessor to read Cara’s honesty, but she had quickly learned that she didn’t need to; with her, for reasons that she knew evaded the Mord-Sith just as much as they evaded her, Cara was an open book. A raw, exposed wound.

“We should get back up there,” Kahlan heard herself murmuring, the words coming as if from across a great distance.

“Kahlan...”

“I’m all right, Richard,” she said again, knowing before she’d even finished uttering the hollow assurance that he wouldn’t believe a word of it, just as he hadn’t before.

“No,” he said softly. “Not that.”

He sighed heavily, seeming to be wrestling with something bigger than he was, something that he couldn’t quite find the words to express; given how prone he usually was to blurting out what was on his mind without even so much as a passing thought for the consequences, Kahlan found herself suddenly drowning in a sea of unease, and stopped dead in her tracks, staring worriedly at him.

“Kahlan,” he said again.

The strain in his voice made Kahlan reach instinctively for his hand; he clung to hers as she caressed his palm, seeming to draw strength simply from the feel of her skin against his, and swallowed a deep calming breath.

“I know you want...” He trailed off, cursing through his teeth. “Kahlan, you can’t be for her what Dahlia was. You can’t.”

Of course, she knew that, but hearing it said aloud struck Kahlan with a depth of pain that caught her off-guard and drove the breath from her lungs.

She’d never wanted to be what Dahlia was, she was certain. She’d never wanted to possess Cara or fight with her as though fighting were the only language they understood, or service her in ways that, though they may have been acceptable to Mord-Sith, certainly were not to civilized people (and definitely not to Confessors). She didn’t want to do any of the things Dahlia had done, or be any of the things Dahlia had been; Dahlia was Mord-Sith, cruel and calloused despite her unusual penchant for softness. Kahlan was a Confessor, thinking and feeling and ever empathetic. They were as different as two human beings could possibly be.

And yet, for reasons beyond her comprehension, it hurt like a physical blow to know that she could never be to Cara what that woman – that nonexistent Mord-Sith, that figment of her spell-blind imagination – had been. It pained her, for reasons beyond her comprehension, to know that Cara would never want to be possessed by her, or to fight with her like that, or (if she were honest) even to be serviced by her. After more than a year in each other’s company, it cut deeper than Kahlan could have ever imagined to realise that what fleeting cherished intimacies Cara had allowed her to share were as nothing compared with those that she had shared in another world with a Mord-Sith who would go on to betray her so completely.

“I don’t want to be her,” Kahlan said at last, masking the bitterness as best she could. “But it’s not fair that she can have that... that she can remember how it feels to have that... and then come back knowing it never really existed.”

“It’s what she wants,” Richard reiterated.

“She doesn’t know what she wants!” Kahlan shouted, and tavern’s the few patrons turned to look at her. “Richard, she’s been trained her whole life to believe that her sole purpose in life is pain. She wants to hurt, because it’s the only thing she knows how to do. She thinks it’ll make everything make sense because it’s the only thing she’s ever been able to understand.” She was losing control, and she knew it, but she could no more stop the tidal wave of words than she could stop feeling the weight of them breaking over her. “Richard, she wants this to _destroy_ her. She wants to spend the rest of her life grieving for a woman who doesn’t exist, for a life she never had. She’s a Mord-Sith, Richard, all she wants is—”

“Kahlan,” Richard interrupted sharply.

“What?” she demanded, falling down from the dizzy heights of her tirade with a resounding crash. “What, Richard?”

“You’re _jealous_ ,” he said, voice uncharacteristically tight. “Of this Dahlia, this... this ‘woman that doesn’t exist’. Of what she shared with a Cara who isn’t even ours. Kahlan, however you want to try and shape this... you’re jealous.”

“You can’t possibly understand,” she informed him icily, realising a second too late that she hadn’t denied his words.

“Kahlan,” he repeated. “You _are_ jealous. You’re afraid that, when she comes out of this spell, she’ll have forgotten all about you. How she feels about you. You think she’ll believe that whatever her other self had with Dahlia was worth more than the feelings she has for you.”

“This isn’t about feelings, Richard...”

“It’s all about feelings,” he said, and suddenly there was so much suffering in his face that Kahlan wondered briefly if he’d been struck.

Gently, he pulled his hand free from hers, reaching up to cup the side of her face, and she found herself leaning into his touch as though it alone were her reason for breathing. 

“Kahlan,” he continued, tortured.

“Richard,” she whispered, taken in by the pain behind his eyes and the love that lifted his lips.

“You have feelings for her,” he told her.

She opened her mouth to tell him that this wasn’t exactly news, that he knew she cared about her, that she’d told him herself, many times, just how important Cara had become to her... but he silenced her with a look.

“Not like that,” he said, too quietly. “I don’t mean that you care for her. We all care for her. But you...”

He closed his eyes, as if it were too much even for him to meet her gaze while he said what he needed to.

“...you have _feelings_ for her, Kahlan. Every bit as strong as the ones you have for me.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she told him. “Richard, I care about Cara a great deal. She’s a very dear friend to me, and that’s confusing, because every part of me still feels like I should hate her for what she’s done. But you’re seeing things that don’t exist. My heart belongs to you. Always and exclusively.”

The words sounded hollow, even to her own ears, and that surprised her more than anything else. Why should they sound hollow? They were true enough, weren’t they? Perhaps it could be said that Cara had a piece of her heart, some small fragment that she’d somehow managed to steal away while the Mother Confessor wasn’t looking (and, judging by the way her very soul ached at the thought of Cara in pain, Kahlan couldn’t deny that it was more than merely ‘possible’)... but that wasn’t the same as what Richard was suggesting. Not even close. 

Richard was deluded, of course; his hot-blooded male brain had been addled by the mental image of Cara and Dahlia in intimate places (and, she supposed, she could hardly blame him for that), and he was seeing what he wanted to see in her as well. His accusations held no water, so there was no reason for her own self-defence to sound as wan and brittle as it did. It made no sense, just as it made no sense for Richard to have implied what he had in the first place... and yet she couldn’t deny that, were she to use her Confessor’s powers to read which of the two of them were speaking the truth, Richard’s conviction right at that moment would be far greater than her own.

“Think about it,” he instructed, climbing to his feet. “Just sit there, clear your mind, and really... _really_... think about it.”

That suggestion made, he turned and walked away, leaving Kahlan alone with the feelings she wanted nothing more than to deny.


	17. Chapter 17

Every rational fibre of Kahlan’s being demanded that she get up, go after Richard, and force him see sense. Tackle him to the ground, if that was what she needed to do, and damn the handful of ragged-looking tavern patrons who would no doubt enjoy the show.

The corner of her mind that adhered to social norms, however, insisted that there would be nothing but black eyes and humiliation to be gained from that by either of them. Of course, as chance would have it, it was that self-conscious part of her that seemed to be in control right at that moment (or perhaps it was simply that her motor skills were still in a state of shock and incapable of getting her onto her feet); so, in spite of herself, she just sat there, numb and horrified and alone.

It wasn’t the fact that Richard had said what he had that affected her. No, it was the fact that he _believed_ it. And, more even than that, the fact that she hadn’t been able to convincing him that he shouldn’t.

Richard didn’t throw accusations lightly, even when his target deserved them... and, of all the people in all the Midlands, the one person he would never throw any kind of accusation at was Kahlan. She herself, she remembered with a blush, had thrown more than her share of them at him during their early days together, but Richard was a gentleman and had always caught and handled them with deftness and undeserved chivalry.

Any unkind words she’d launched in his direction, he had deflected without so much as blinking, and had never once done the same to her in return (though she would have been the first to admit that he’d had the right to do so on more than one occasion). He was, she’d learned many times, beyond such pettiness as that. Not because he was the Seeker, but because he was Richard, and because he had always been so much better than she was.

So for Richard, of all people, to tell Kahlan (the one person in the world he would never throw idle accusations at) that he believed she had feelings for Cara, feelings not unlike those she was supposed to reserve for him and him alone... well, he had to have his reasons. He had to truly believe it, and he had to have a very convincing reason to.

There was no foundation to it, of course. She could sit and think about it as long as he wanted, and longer besides, but it wouldn’t make the least difference. Her feelings for the Mord-Sith were exactly as they had been before any of this had started. More complicated, yes, but no different.

Of course she cared about Cara; after everything they’d been through together, it was only natural that she would feel for her, that she’d come to respect her and care about her and look upon her as a friend (indeed, as a sister). Of course she was conflicted and confused by the way she felt; after what Cara had done to Dennee, and after having been forced to re-experience it after so long, thanks to the damned spell, it made perfect sense that she’d be troubled now; who wouldn’t be? And, yes, of course there were blurred lines and shades of grey between what she felt and what was rational; when a situation involved the volatile combination of Confessor and Mord-Sith, it was to be expected. None of those things were unusual, so why should they surprise Richard to the point of such vast misinterpretation?

Somewhere at the edge of her thoughts, just far enough from the centre that she could pretend it didn’t exist, some small part of her knew the answer.

That part had known before Richard had ever said it, had probably known even before the spell had been cast at all. It was why she had been afraid, not of seeing Cara endure her Mord-Sith training, but of seeing her intimacies with Dahlia. It was why Richard and Zedd had wanted her to be the one watching over Cara while she was under the spell’s influence, why Cara herself had trusted Kahlan and only Kahlan to be there with her. It was all the things that had been there longer than she could fathom, and she’d never even noticed them there.

But it wasn’t _love_ , her plaintive heart cried out. Not the kind of love that Richard suspected, not the kind of love that would have fuelled jealousy over a woman who defined the term ‘lover’. Not the kind of love she felt for Richard (only for him, always for him). Of all the feelings in all the world, it wasn’t that. It couldn’t be that.

Kahlan was in love with Richard. Deeply, honestly, and passionately. After two years in his company (and almost that same length spent fighting their mutual attraction lest they lose control and she inadvertently confess him), the realisation that they could finally consummate what had shimmered between them for so long had been such a profound relief that it had stolen both their breaths for days.

Their efforts had been clumsy, unsteady, and especially difficult for Kahlan; she had been taught long ago to never surrender herself to the need for physical intimacy, and certainly never with somebody she truly cared for. It had been far harder than she could have anticipated to suddenly learn that she didn’t need those barriers she’d spent a lifetime putting up. Richard had been patient with her, accepting, and both Zedd and Cara had graciously given them an entire forest’s worth of space while they acquainted themselves with each other’s bodies for the first time... but, even so, it had been far from easy.

There had been no stars, no cataclysms, no explosions of bliss or earth-shattering pleasure. For Kahlan, at first, though she knew it was unnecessary, the fear of her powers had still reigned absolute. Even at the very height of what Richard had done to her, the edge of her mind had loudly and insistently demanded to know what would happen if they were wrong about this. What if, her mind had cried (even at the peak of pleasure), her inability to confess him while under the influence of the blood-rage had just been a fortunate fluke? What if they had misinterpreted its meaning, if the fury of the Con Dar and the joy of physical intimacy were too vividly different to assume the safety of one based on that of the other? What if? What if?

Over and over in her mind, the questions had repeated, too loud to ignore and too frightening to dismiss, and it had taken a few painful attempts (to say nothing of the coaxing it had taken on Richard’s part) before she’d finally surrendered herself completely.

The sheer depth of patience Richard had exercised with her, after waiting two years to finally be able to do what he must only have imagined (and probably, knowing him, in graphic detail) until that point, was all the evidence Kahlan needed of how deeply his love for her ran, and it had filled her heart with such love in return that she had been starstruck for hours. It had been his soul, so much more than his body, that had touched her, and it had marked her forever, rendering her breathless. It had been a struggle, but she had, at last, understood.

Kahlan had been told countless stories about love and romance ever since she was a child; as a Confessor, though, she had known from an early age not to let herself be influenced or enthralled by them. Her purpose in the world, she knew, was very different to those of the girls who ordinarily heard those stories; she and her sister had higher destinies in their lives. Their mother had always been kind in explaining that to them, and Kahlan had stopped feeling sad about it many years ago.

Richard was everything the stories spoke about, and more besides. He was kind and thoughtful and generous, and he loved her as though she were the only other person in all the world. She’d never known a man like him before, and she had always believed she would never need to. And now they were complete. Their story had reached its happy ending, and they both had the storybook romance that others took for granted, given to them seemingly by the Creator herself after all they’d endured time and time again in their quests to save the world.

It was perfect. It was _perfect_ , in every possible way, and (her heart whimpered) it should have been enough.

But then there was Cara.

Cara, who was all she could think about since Zedd had revealed what he’d done to her. Cara, who was everything she was supposed to hate, who was every evil and depraved thing in the world all wrapped up in a single leather-clad package. Cara, who was evil and destruction and pain made flesh. Cara, who had killed Dennee, in two different ways and on two different worlds. Cara, who should have meant nothing to her, but who was increasingly becoming everything, whose spell-blind eyes were suddenly all that she could see, whose heart and soul were beating across worlds in time with Kahlan’s own. Cara, who had willingly put herself through torture and trauma and self-destruction and sex, and all for her. Cara, who was so little and so much and both at once. Cara.

And now Kahlan had no choice but to do as Richard had told her... to sit there, paralysed by conflict and confusion and her own slow-burning doubts, and really _think_ about what she was feeling.

Her mind replayed, as if on a constant loop, countless visions of Cara. Head snapping back as she reeling from the shock of a blow that Kahlan could neither see nor protect her from. White eyes wide and unseeing as she gazed deep into the face of a woman who didn’t exist. Body arching and shuddering as she rode out the waves of pleasure brought on by a phantom’s touch. Fists balled at her side, fingers flailing for agiels, spine straight with determination as she faced down Denna and Dennee and so many others. A thousand different reactions to a thousand different things, locked away from the world that was hers and trapped in one that wasn’t... and always, the one constant, in Kahlan’s arms. Forever hers.

The thought came so naturally, so easily, flitted across her mind with such practiced comfort, that Kahlan was thrown by it. Cara was hers. How long had she looked at it that way? How long had Cara been more than just her travelling companion, more than just her friend, more than just her lover’s protector? How long had she been _hers_?

Perhaps that was the source of her so-called jealousy, she mused. Hadn’t it been Kahlan, after all, who had endured months upon months of looking at Cara and seeing only the woman who had tortured her sister until the pain finally killed her? Hadn’t Kahlan been the one who’d ultimately overcome that heartache, who had come to see the humanity hidden beneath the leather and the laces? Hadn’t she been the one who’d spent more hours than Richard and Zedd combined, trying to teach Cara even the basic nuances of what was right and what was wrong? Hadn’t she, too, been the one forced to admit to the friendship they had forged, when Cara couldn’t even voice that?

After all those things, she wanted to scream, hadn’t she _earned_ her?

It was the opposite of confession... and, in a way, that made it worse. Cara hadn’t come to Kahlan because she was forced to feel a love that would never otherwise have existed. She had come to her, shared herself, become her friend and her confidante and _hers_ , and all by her own choice. And Kahlan, though she should have killed Cara when she’d had the chance, had come to her in turn, and had become Cara’s. They had come together, not because of anything that had been forced upon them – not by breaking or confession or any of their mutually exclusive tools or tortures – but simly because they had come to care for each other.

Cara was hers, Kahlan’s mind howled, possessive and passionate. She had earned her, cared for her, branded her and been branded by her in kind. They were each other’s, as surely as either of them were Richard’s.

And Richard, her heart cried out in return, had been right all along.

Because this was not simple. This was not loyalty or dedication or friendship or any of the thousand easily-explained things that she’d been hiding behind. This was raw and powerful and blinding. It was unfettered and untameable and unstoppable and, above all, undeniable. It was all the things she still felt for Richard, and a thousand others as well.

It was, and the truth of it caused her heart to stop and her soul to shatter, _love_.

Moving as if in a daze, she staggered to her feet, not even aware of the chair as it was thrown backwards by the sudden movement and fell with a resounding clatter to the stone floor. The heads of those patrons who weren’t too soused by their drinking turned to see what had caused the noise, but Kahlan paid them no mind as she stumbled half-blind towards the back room through which she knew she would find the stairs, and hoped that she would find Richard as well.

She needed to talk to him. He needed to take it back. Things had been simple before he’d accused her of harbouring these unwanted feelings, before he’d made her think of them. They needed to be simple again.

It surprised her (and yet, somehow didn’t surprise her at all) to find him waiting for her at the foot of the creaky staircase, eyes darkened by sadness but also flashing with barely-repressed anticipation. He knew her, every bit as well as she knew him, and every bit as well as she knew Cara. He’d known that she would figure it out within a matter of minutes once the seed of it was planted in her mind, and he’d known that she would seek him out as soon as she did.

And yet, the sight of him standing there, looking so simultaneously lost and resigned, stole the fight from her. He was a lost little boy, and it was all her fault.

“See?” he said, by way of greeting, soft and sad and almost broken. “I told you.”

“Richard...” she said, and the word was a plea and an apology and a sob all at once. “Richard, I didn’t... I never...”

“Nobody does,” he said; she could see how hard he was trying to make himself sound casual, and wondered whose benefit it was for. “But it doesn’t change anything.”

“I love you,” she told him, and she meant it with all her heart.

For a few long moments, he looked like he was waging a war against himself, struggling for enough air to form enough words and say what he needed to.

_I love you too. I wish there was another way. It’s over. I need you. I can’t deal with this right now. I will always be yours._

A thousand possibilities rolled through her mind, each one more devastating than the last, and each one more permanent. She could only stand there, trapped in the fire of his gaze like a fly in a spider’s web, and wait for him to summon strength enough to say what they both needed him to. Something, anything. Everything. For both their sakes, she prayed he made it quick.

The one thing she wasn’t prepared for (and, by the look on his face as it happened, neither was he), was for Richard to suddenly lurch forward as if possessed, and capture her lips in a kiss so passionate that she was sure it would leave bruises down to the bones of them both.

Her momentary shock was overridden almost immediately, though, by the sudden emotion that tore through her like a hurricane. In less than a moment, she was melting into him, allowing his warmth to wash over her, letting his strength hold her upright, feeling the balm of his compassion soothe over her troubled heart.

He kissed her as though he’d never kissed her before, as though he would never kiss her again; Kahlan honestly had no idea which of the two was more heartbreaking right then, but she could no more pull away from him than she could keep the tears from falling from that place deep within her that hadn’t wanted any of this, dousing both their lips with wet salt.

Richard’s hands were restless, always in motion. They tangled in her hair one moment and tugged at her hips the next, each breath more intoxicating than the last, each moment more urgent, each touch more branding; he was as close to frenzied as Kahlan had ever seen him, and she didn’t even have the power to back away and ask him what was going on because she was just as much a victim to the same thing.

It wasn’t over. It couldn’t be. If they kept kissing, everything else would wash away. The conflict, the confusion, the feeling... it would all melt away, sugar in the rain, drown and dissolve until there was nothing left but _them_. Richard and Kahlan. Just them, just like it had always been. Just like they’d been before any of this... before Richard had been right and Kahlan had been confused and Cara had been involved at all. It would be them again, and everything would be simple. If only... if only...

...if only they could just hold onto each other for another moment, another heartbeat, another kiss, another touch, another breath.

But it had to end, and not just because they needed air.

“Kahlan,” Richard panted as he pulled away, tearing himself from her as though they’d been glued together and roughness was the only way to break free. As she fought to recover her composure, he braced himself against the staircase, their ragged breathing caught in flawless rhythm. “Kahlan, I love you. I love you. I love you. I...”

“I love you,” she echoed again, as though repeating those three words over and over again would erase the sudden countless things they needed to work through. “I love you, Richard.”

“Where are we?” he asked, the little boy resurfacing in his eyes as he caught his breath and lost himself.

He wanted her to tell him that it didn’t matter, she realised; he wanted her to comfort him and hold him and tell him that whatever she was or wasn’t feeling for Cara, it didn’t matter and it didn’t compare to what they shared. And she, in turn, wanted so desperately to tell him exactly that. Not just for his sake but for hers as well, because it would have been so simple and so safe and so much of all the things she needed so desperately.

Richard truly was everything she had ever wanted, all her life and beyond, all the things she’d believed she could never have and all the things she still couldn’t believe she suddenly did have. He was her world... and yet, even now, with his breath still on her lips and his taste lingering sweet on her tongue, she couldn’t keep from thinking that he had no right to ask for her comfort or her love or her touch when Cara (always Cara, again Cara, forever Cara) needed all those things so much more than he did.

“I love you,” she said, wishing that it could be enough. “I do, Richard. Never doubt that. But she needs me. Right now, we can’t. We _can’t_... there are more important things than this. She’s more important. Right now, she’s so much more important than either of us. Can’t we just... for now...?”

She closed her eyes, committing the taste of him to memory, in case this truly was the end of it all.

“Not now,” she finished at last. “All right? When this is all over...”

Anyone else, she was sure, would have pushed her for an immediate answer. A lesser man would have tried to force her hand, pressed her to make a decision (even if it was ultimately the wrong one) rather than allowing them both to rest on something so uncertain. But he was Richard Cypher, and Kahlan knew, even before he stepped away from the tentative support of the staircase, that he’d never have pushed her for anything. Even now, with both their hearts in shredded tatters at their feet, hers confused and his broken, he wouldn’t force her and he wouldn’t make demands.

“When this is all over,” he repeated with a nod, sounding more exhausted than she’d ever heard him.

Before she could allow herself to drown in the pain behind his eyes, Kahlan forced herself to turn away, foot resting on the edge of the first creaking step and gaze locked on the far wall.

“It doesn’t change anything,” she said, echoing his earlier words. “This... whatever it is I’m feeling about her. It doesn’t change how I feel about you.”

“No,” he agreed, and his voice cracked.

For a heartbeat, it looked as if he was going to add something, but he seemed to think better of it, and she accepted his silence as a gift.

“We should get back,” she told him, feeling guilty even before the words had left her lips. “I don’t want to leave her alone with Zedd. Not after...” 

She trailed off, realising that she didn’t really know how she wanted the sentence to end. There were too many reasons, too many countless things she didn’t want Zedd involved in, and she had too little ability to voice them all.

Quietly submissive, Richard nodded, and followed two steps behind as she retraced the path back up the increasingly-wobbly staircase. Part of her wanted to turn around and face him, to apologise for all the hurt she’d caused, or else to push him up against the wall and resume the kiss where it had ended moments earlier. She knew, though, that neither of those things would do anything more or less than prolong the inevitable... and, if she was completely honest, she found it was easier to keep her mind clear and her thoughts unburdened when Richard wasn’t in her line of sight.

It wouldn’t be so easy, she knew, to keep Cara hidden from her field of vision once she was back in the room... but, for some reason, that thought was more comforting than it was unnerving. If she could just be in the same room as her, if she could just watch her again, everything would make sense, like it had before. She’d realise that it was the spell’s effects driving her to feel things she didn’t, that it was another world’s Cara – a woman who didn’t exist – that she was harbouring these alien feelings for. If only she could see Cara again, she would realise that her heart belonged to Richard as truly as his belonged to her.

All this would be cast aside, she was sure, and everything would go back to the comfortable simplicity it had been before. Not because she truly believed it... but because it _had_ to.

Zedd blinked, unable to mask his surprise when they re-entered the room; Kahlan had stormed through the door like a tornado, not even bothering to knock, and the wizard was far too polite to call her on her lack of etiquette, opting instead to simply quirk a puzzled eyebrow in her direction.

“You’re back,” he said softly.

“How is she?” Kahlan demanded, refusing to waste time on frivolities or formalities.

Zedd sighed, as if that was the last question in the world he’d wanted to hear, even though Kahlan knew he would be far more of a fool than he was if he hadn’t anticipated it.

“She’s the same,” he told her, clearly choosing his words carefully. “No change, no crisis, not even a whisper.”

Kahlan, naturally, had stopped listening to him after ‘the same’. Without so much as a glance in Zedd’s direction, or a spared thought for Richard standing sorrowfully behind her, she crossed to Cara’s side like a woman possessed, and took the motionless Mord-Sith’s face in her hands.

“Cara?”

Though she’d expected it, Cara’s silence cut like a blade.

“You know she can’t hear you...” Zedd reminded her gently.

“I don’t care,” Kahlan heard herself snap, only realising as the words caught in her throat just how completely she meant them. “I don’t care if she can hear me, Zedd. I don’t care where she is or what she’s doing. I don’t care. I just... I just had to see her.”

She didn’t need to turn around to know that Zedd was frowning. He would know better than to voice his concerns outright, she knew, but she also knew that he wouldn’t be able to hold his tongue completely now that he’d sensed something was amiss.

“Kahlan,” he said, polite but cautious, and Kahlan smiled in satisfaction at her foresight. “I know you’re worried about her... but are you quite sure you’re feeling all right?”

Rolling her eyes, she cocked her head to face him, as annoyed by the necessity of looking away from Cara as she was by the thinly-veiled anxiety in the wizard’s voice.

“I’m fine,” she insisted, struggling to avoid Richard’s eyes and fixing Zedd with as pointed a glare as she could muster. “It’s nothing, Zedd. I’m fine. I just needed to see her. If you were in my position, you would too.”

Beneath her fingertips, Cara’s jaw twitched, and her head shifted almost imperceptibly to better fit into the hand that cupped it. The wizard swiftly forgotten, Kahlan turned back to face Cara, humming her name again; this time, it was a near-breathless plea, and the Mord-Sith responded with a tiny sigh, one that was as fragile as it was soft.

In that moment, there was nobody else. No Zedd, no Richard, and certainly no Dahlia. Blind as Cara was, unseeing and unknowing and trapped in the effects of a spell that had taken her away from the one woman in either world who truly cared, she was still responding to the touch of Kahlan’s fingertips, to her words, just as she always did.

It was coincidence, she knew, though the fact grew harder and harder to accept with each recurring incident. It was just another in a long sequence of well-timed reactions to things that had nothing to do with anything... but, just at that moment, it was everything Kahlan needed.

“Kahlan,” Richard said, and his voice was strung tighter than wire.

“She’s all right,” she told him, as though that really had been her only reason for diving on Cara the instant she’d laid eyes on her. As if it was a lack of faith in Zedd’s babysitting abilities that had inspired her to reach out, and not the feelings she was still striving to deny. “Zedd’s right. She’s the same.”

“Of course I’m right,” Zedd muttered indignantly; Kahlan could tell by the tone of his voice that he realised there was a deeper seriousness to what was going on, but was trying (in his usual ill-advised way) to lighten the mood. “You don’t become a wizard of the First Order without knowing what you’re doing.”

Taking the offered opportunity, Richard managed a strained grin.

“You could’ve fooled us,” he remarked, though the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “All the times you’ve got us in trouble...”

Even though she knew it was a well-intentioned and harmless comment, Kahlan’s fingers twitched with barely-repressed anger where they rested against Cara’s too-pale cheek.

“Right,” she said faintly.

Zedd frowned again, looking from her to Richard and back with a sense of confusion that was (despite what was obviously his best efforts) far too deliberate to be genuine. For all his foolery, Zedd was sharper than all three of them combined; at the very least, he was certainly much sharper than Richard, and, if the Seeker had figured out the turn of Kahlan’s thoughts, there was no doubt in her mind that Zedd would soon be able to as well.

“Are you sure you’re feeling all right?” the wizard asked again, then, seeming to know he wouldn’t get a straight answer from her, turned to Richard. “Did you make sure she had a good meal? It’s been nearly two days; she must be half-starved by now.”

“Zedd,” Kahlan grumbled, cutting off Richard before he had the chance to utter a word, much less expose her feelings for what they were. “I’m fine. You can leave.”

Of all the possible reactions she had expected from the wizard, sudden inexpressible sorrow was not among them. Almost visibly, he seemed to deflate at the sharpness of her tone, as though some small part of him had expected the cut of her words even though Kahlan hadn’t really even expected it from herself. He looked resigned, more even so than Richard, but, unlike his grandson, the wizard looked almost as though he’d been sitting there in anticipation of her sharp temper for the entire time he and Cara had been left alone.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and Kahlan blinked.

She had expected him to ask yet again whether she was all right, or else to take Richard aside and ask him (loudly enough to be overheard, but not so loudly as to let her interrupt) the same question. Perhaps even to flat-out demand, in that rare tone of authority he saved for crucial moments such as this, that they both tell him exactly what was going on. She had expected him to be curious, confused, concerned. But apologetic? Of all the innumerable things that were Zedd’s fault, the tumultuous tempest of Kahlan’s feelings was not among them.

So distracted was she by the weight of puzzlement that she didn’t even stop to think that perhaps Zedd’s thoughts were similarly distracted.

As if trying to offer an explanation of her own, Cara shifted again, head slipping from Kahlan’s grasp and tilting back until it struck the wall. A soft grunt escaped her at the impact, and Kahlan gently repositioned her until the risk of further self-injury was less. Almost unaware of it, she heard her own voice whispering words of comfort and support, and the need to bandage even such an innocuous incident cast from her mind (albeit just momentarily) Zedd’s apology.

At least, until he cut through the moment to speak again, and she had no choice but to turn back to him.

“Believe me,” he said, eyes shifting from Kahlan to Cara and back again, as though he couldn’t quite figure out which of the two to address. “There are few things in my life that I regret as much as I regret this... and all four of us know how extensive a stretch of time that is.”

He paused, eyes hopeful; he seemed to be anticipating (perhaps even praying for) a chuckle. A gesture of acceptance, acknowledgement of his words and appreciation of what he was trying to say. Under normal circumstances, Kahlan might have tried to ease his tortured conscience by offering one, but she simply didn’t have the false energy to muster one right then. Saddened but resigned, Zedd pressed on anyway.

“I know you’re protective of her, Kahlan, and I know that you’ve been through just as much trauma as she has. I can’t imagine the things you must have seen in her to make you feel this troubled... but please believe me when I say I truly had no other choice. And, if you can’t believe that, at least believe me when I say that you can’t possibly loathe me for it as much as I loathe myself.”

Kahlan fought a grimace. So that was why he was apologising; he thought she was still angry with him for what he’d done. And, she supposed, she was, but there were far greater thoughts burdening her mind just then than Zedd’s self-righteous spellcasting.

“It’s fine, Zedd,” she said.

And, really, it was. It would have been easy to throw her emotions at the wizard, to vent her percolating frustrations on him, to blame him for everything that was spinning like a whirlpool around her head. It would have been so simple to make him the cause of all the things she was feeling, but she knew that it wasn’t true. She knew Zedd too well by this point to truly hate him for what he’d done (though she still couldn’t forgive him for it), and she knew herself too well by now to believe (however badly she wanted to) that there was any cause of her feelings other than her own traitorous heart.

“Kahlan’s just confused,” Richard said, and even Zedd would be able to tell from the tone of his voice that there was so much more to that statement than either of them were willing to say. “She’s just... seeing a side of Cara that she never expected to.”

Had she not been prepared for it, Kahlan would have choked at that. As it was, she merely shot Richard a scathing look and willed herself to stand up.

“It’s complicated,” she confessed, the words echoed by an unhappy sigh from the Seeker. “She’s not who I thought she was.”

“Don’t judge her too harshly,” Zedd said, and Kahlan blinked. “We both know what happens to girls chosen by the Mord-Sith. Cara’s failings, though I’ll be the first to admit they’re plentiful, aren’t all her fault. I know it’s difficult to see them played out in front of you, but...”

“She killed Dennee,” Kahlan said flatly, and held up a hand to silence any outbursts that might have escaped the wizard’s lips; she could feel his eyes on her, and Richard’s too, but refused to meet either of their gazes. “She killed her. Right in front of me.” 

“Kahlan...” Richard breathed.

“She killed her,” Kahlan repeated, ignoring him. “But it was... it was different. She did it swiftly, and she made it painless.” The memory was raw as an open wound, and she flinched. “She was _compassionate_ , Zedd. It was... I... I’ve never that in her before.”

“She did it swiftly,” Zedd echoed, blinking thoughtfully as though the revelation wasn’t new to him; his unease deepening almost tangibly, he frowned. “Are you telling me that this world’s Cara – that _your_ Cara – didn’t?”

It took Kahlan far longer than she’d ever admit to remember that Zedd had only ever known the other world’s Cara, that he’d never even met the one that she and Richard knew so well until after all of these things had passed. Unexpected and wholly unbidden, her chest flooded with envy.

“What happened, Kahlan?” Zedd asked. “What did she do?”

“She was a Mord-Sith,” Kahlan told him, holding herself void of emotion despite the cost. “She made her suffer. Tortured her until she begged for mercy, and then kept going. She tortured her to death, Zedd... and she enjoyed it.”

The wizard’s mouth fell open at that, the genuine shock evident on every line of his face. “Oh, Kahlan,” he murmured. “I didn’t know. I assumed... I had no idea something like that might have been affected. If I’d thought for even a moment that you’d have to witness that...”

Behind him, Richard was staring at her, slack-jawed and horrified. He looked as though he might pass out, and she pre-empted any reaction he might have attempted by holding up a dismissive hand and waving him into silence. The last thing she needed just then was Richard’s sympathy as well as Zedd’s.

“It’s done,” she said. “It’s over. It happened, and I saw it. And she... she seemed so...”

She closed her eyes, remembering the way her heart had ached, the way it had felt like she was seeing Cara’s true soul exposed for the very first time.

“She was remorseful,” she finished, hating how small her voice sounded, and how little justice the words did to the truth of what she’d seen. “Not because she was on trial, like in Stowcroft, not because she just found out she’d been living a lie. Nothing like that. She just... she just didn’t want to do it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Richard whispered. He looked even worse than he had a moment earlier, but Kahlan just couldn’t bring herself to care. “Kahlan...”

“This isn’t about you, Richard,” she replied sharply. “And it’s not about _us_. This isn’t about Zedd or his spells, or the damage he’s caused everyone around him. It’s about Cara... and it’s about me.”

And there it was. She’d said it. Not in nearly as much depth as she’d wanted to, but it was there. Cara’s life and her own were intertwined. And, if it killed them both, Richard and Zedd needed to realise just how deeply this ran.

“I didn’t think it was,” she admitted, almost to herself, “but it is. This woman, this Dahlia... she didn’t just change Cara’s childhood, or the way she was broken, or how much she was allowed to feel when she was growing up. She changed everything. With this woman in her life, Cara spared a Confessor – my _sister_ – the suffering she’d been trained all her life to inflict... the suffering that our Cara _did_ inflict.” She clenched her jaw, willing back the sting behind her eyes before letting herself continue. “It changes everything. It changes... it changes who she is. And it changes what she means to me.”

“Kahlan, I know how much you care about her...” Zedd started helplessly.

“No, Zedd,” Richard told him. “You don’t.”

“You can’t understand,” Kahlan said. “Neither of you can. You can’t understand what it is to know this woman, to spend a year with her, all the while knowing that she did unspeakable things to your own sister. You can’t understand how it feels to go from that, and to realise that you care about her anyway. You don’t know how it feels to build a friendship with a woman that every last inch of you is screaming for you to kill. You can’t know how it feels to care about someone like that... and then, just when you think you’ve made peace with it all, to find out that there’s a version of her somewhere out there who didn’t do any of those things you hated her for.”

She forced herself to soften, turning to Zedd with heartache in her eyes, and felt a surge of bittersweetness to see her expression mirrored in his age-touched eyes.

“I know you did what you needed to, Zedd, and I don’t blame you for doing it... but it’s not just Dahlia you took. Not any more.”

Zedd and Richard exchanged glances.

“I care about her,” Kahlan said, in a strong voice, and it wasn’t nearly enough. “And, when I look at her now, my heart aches. For her, for me, for Dennee. It hurts, Zedd. Everything you did to her, you did to me.”

Richard bowed his head; had he been anyone else, Kahlan was sure he would have been crying. Zedd placed a hand on his grandson’s shoulder, eyes never leaving Kahlan.

“You’re confused,” he told her. “It’s understandable, given the circumstances.”

“I need to figure some things out,” she affirmed noncommittally.

“And she needs to finish riding out the spell,” he said, eyes darting briefly to the unaware Mord-Sith. “Are you up to staying with her, or would you sooner I take over from here?”

It was an offer, not an accusation, and Kahlan was surprised to find that she didn’t mind it.

“I’m the one she wanted,” she answered, shaking her head. “And I want to see it. I want more of her. I want to know her, completely. I want...”

“Say no more,” Zedd said with a flamboyant hand gesture.

For the first time since she’d found out what he’d done, Kahlan wanted nothing more than to run to his side and wrap him up in her arms. He was Richard’s grandfather, and a very old man with very old views; he couldn’t possibly understand the kind of thoughts she needed to process, the kind of things she needed to ‘figure out’... but he didn’t care.

Unlike Richard, he didn’t care that Kahlan was dealing with complex emotions that he could not be made to understand, or that she was troubled on a level he could not comprehend. All he knew was that she was in pain, and she needed his support. And so, he stood there, smiling at her with a depth of aching sorrow that had everything to do with the conflict she was feeling and nothing to do with its source.

“Whatever you need, dear one,” he said, and she could tell he meant it. “Anything at all.”

“I need her,” Kahlan replied. “I need to see this through.”

“And so does she,” Zedd nodded, already turning towards the door with an expression that was equal parts pain and sympathy. “Come along, my boy,” he said to Richard, though Kahlan could tell he wasn’t really seeing him. “I believe I hear the distinct sound of the kitchens opening for the evening meal...”

It was a lie, of course, but one Kahlan was eternally grateful for.

Still, though, the look in Richard’s eyes as he turned and followed the wizard out of the room was haunting. He looked as though he truly believed, with all his heart and soul, that it would be the last time they’d ever see each other. As though he was bidding a permanent farewell to the most important thing he’d ever known, as though he could see her slipping away before his very eyes. It was a look that would stay with her for at least the rest of her life.

“Cara,” she sighed, turning back to the motionless Mord-Sith as soon as they were left alone. “We have a problem.”


	18. Chapter 18

_The new Lord Rahl was very, very different to his predecessor._

_The Mother Confessor, on the other hand, was exactly as Cara had expected her to be._

_Cara didn’t expect to be accepted. She supposed, if she was fortunate, she might be tolerated. Lord Rahl (the_ Seeker _, she was forced to remind herself several times a day, since he had stated with no margin for error that she was not, under any circumstances, to call him by his true title) was generous to her; still cautious, of course, but yielding. He did not order her unless it was necessary, and he did not use force to get things done as Darken Rahl had. He was a kind man, and a weak leader._

_The Mother Confessor and her pet wizard, however, told an entirely different story. They slept with weapons under their pillows, threw her glances deliberately designed to wound at every available opportunity, and whispered malicious things whenever her back was turned. Apparently, they were not aware of just how perceptive the Mord-Sith were, or particularly well-schooled in the keenness of their hearing._

_In a strange sort of way, she supposed she admired the Mother Confessor for her honesty. It would have been easy, and obscenely empathetic, if she’d feigned tolerance simply because the Seeker wanted everyone to get along. But she didn’t. She was faultless in her disdain, genuine in her abhorrence, and admirable in her malice. Had they been anything but Mord-Sith and Confessor, Cara could have developed a genuine depth of respect for the woman. As it was, she reciprocated Kahlan Amnell’s dislike, and rolled her eyes is unabashed disgust whenever they caught each other’s gaze._

_Cara felt nothing for her travelling companions. Not even, if she were honest, for Richard. True, she felt the shackles of the bond between Mord-Sith and Lord Rahl, and would follow him to the Underworld and back again if that was his desire. True also, she appreciated those of his physical assets she was allowed to look at without fear of the Mother Confessor’s threats to decapitate her (and, on more than one occasion since their first encounter, had found herself woken from somewhat pleasing dreams about certain parts of his anatomy)._

_But as a leader? As the Lord Rahl? Even she had to admit (though never aloud, and never where anyone would hear), it was doubtful._

_The Seeker’s legendary kind-heartedness, his infamous compassion, his oft-discussed heroism, though she was sure were impressive to the countless townspeople whose worthless existences he’d saved while failing to complete whatever quest had called to him, were certainly not so remarkable to Cara. She, for her part, had frankly seen more competent leaders crawling out of ant-hills, and would have happily made this point to Richard a hundred times in the brief time they’d been travelling together if she didn’t think the insult would result in him banishing her from his service._

_That, of course, would have been unacceptable. She was sworn to him, as the true Lord Rahl (whether or not he would accept the name, and whether or not she herself could truly see him satisfactorily filling the role), and she had offered her services in whatever capacity he desired to use them. So, whatever she may think of him, whatever she may think of his companions, and whatever she may think of how they did things, she would do as she was told. And, though it pained her on a level that was almost physical, she would follow his guidance._

_It was, after all, Richard’s choice. If he, the new Lord Rahl, wished to apply the considerable talents of a Mord-Sith in the rescuing of kittens from trees, she would obey. Unhappily, of course, but to the best of her ability nonetheless. Because he was the Lord Rahl, and she had pledged herself to him, completely and unconditionally. Even if it meant a lifetime of abject humiliation and small animals._

_At first, she didn’t miss her sisters at all. She was still angry with them for turning against her simply because Triana had grown power-hungry, and furious with herself for allowing the uprising to happen in the first place. She should have sensed the shift within Triana from the very beginning, should have realised at the time that their altercation in the bathhouse would lead to something far more sinister. Triana was wild, and bore a badge of pride that put even Cara’s own to shame; Cara should have known that she wouldn’t take the humiliation lightly._

_It had been foolish of her to expect that Triana would have learned her lesson (a lesson she’d tried to impart upon the other woman countless times in the privacy of her bedchambers, but never before in public), and she should have known better._

_Even by her standards, though, it must have taken a great deal of rage on Triana’s part to convince so many of their mutual sisters (sisters who, until that moment, Cara had genuinely believed to follow her with honest respect) to partake in the beating and humiliation of their leader. Cara may not have been the perfect superior, and she may have been self-appointed, but she had been the natural choice nonetheless; it had not been like Triana at all, and even less like her lower-ranked sisters, to turn on her so swiftly and with such little provocation._

_Had she been the paranoid type, she would have wondered if there were darker forces at work, but she had not been a child for a great many years and was far beyond believing in such foolish things. She put it down to Triana’s delusions of grandeur and their mutual sisters’ restlessness in the wake of Darken Rahl’s demise, and tried not to think about it too much. Her former sisters were no longer any concern of hers._

_She had allowed herself, once or twice, to consider forgiving them their trespasses. In fleeting moments of self-doubt, she wondered if perhaps she should have returned to the temple she had been so outcast from, sought their apologies, and embraced them. It would have been the honourable thing to do, and it would have proven beyond all doubt that she truly was the most worthy of them all to lead them._

_But, of course, she was as much a sister of the agiel as they were, and she knew perfectly well that not one of them would have forgiven her if she had been the one to execute such a betrayal. Triana, certainly, seemed not to have forgiven her for the bathhouse humiliation, and it seemed that even her otherwise-obedient sisters had been dissatisfied by the swiftness with which she’d seized power. They’d been unwilling to forgive her for far smaller missteps than the humiliation that they themselves had subjected her to, and so she in turn had no intention of offering them that same courtesy._

_Besides, she’d mused on one particularly bitter night, they were all dead. What benefit was forgiveness to a rotted corpse?_

_In a twist of fate that was too ironic to be bizarre, Cara found herself almost meeting with the same fate as her former sisters after just a few short days in the company of the new Lord Rahl and his retinue. Perhaps not death, exactly, but close enough that she could taste its bitterness on her tongue. Close enough to know how Triana must have felt in the moments before her heart stopped._

_If she was honest, she couldn’t help thinking it was a miracle that it took that long._

_They were on their way to what Cara was fairly certain was the middle of nowhere, seeking out the Abbot of Ulrich in the vain hope that he would have some sage advice regarding the Seeker’s quest for the Stone of Tears. Already, their journey had endured for the best part of three days, with the promise of at least two more, and the lack of real action (coming amidst the relentless travelling, and the wizard’s complaints about his empty stomach, and the sickeningly star-crossed looks the Seeker and Confessor kept shooting at each other when they thought nobody was looking) had left Cara feeling more than uncomfortable._

_There was a skittering itch beneath the surface of her skin, a restless pounding behind her eyes, and a churning frustration simmering deep in her belly. She felt almost helpless, and she hated it._

_She needed a fight. Desperately._

_The opportunity came somewhere in the middle of the fourth day. Cara had expected the news of Richard’s claim to the throne of D’Hara to have spread quickly through the empire, and had assumed that the first quad of D’Harans they encountered would do as she herself had – namely, pledged their loyalty to him as the true Lord Rahl. But they didn’t; instead, much to her surprise (though not, apparently, to that of her companions), they rushed forward the instant they saw the Seeker, weapons held high and battle cries on their lips. As surprised and baffled as she was by their not knowing that they were taking up arms against the man they should have been serving, Cara was thankful for the opportunity to shed some blood._

_The incident that resulted was, of course, wholly the fault of the Mother Confessor._

_Cara was a Mord-Sith, accustomed to fighting with efficiency and without distraction. Mord-Sith didn’t wear their hair in braids because it was fashionable, they did so because loosely-flowing locks were a distraction on the battlefield. Cara’s own newly-shortened hair was trouble enough to deal with; it was constantly getting in her eyes, flying across her face, needing to be tossed back every few seconds or less... but the Mother Confessor’s untamed tresses were a distraction unlike anything Cara had ever seen before. Her hair darted and dove about like some kind of possessed cloud, swirling and flashing every which way, and it coupled with the flowing white dress she wore until the Mother Confessor and her impractical attire were all Cara could see._

_It took no time at all for Cara to be so distracted by the way Kahlan rippled and spun across the battlefield (as if she had been forged by the Creator herself, not to destroy but to distract) that she misjudged the distance between the quad leader’s sword and her own midsection, and swiftly found herself impaled._

_She didn’t believe for a moment that she’d truly been slain, but she felt undeniably the rush of blood rising up to stain where the blade had gone in, tasted the metallic tang of it in the back of her throat, and knew that the wound was deep and dangerous. It wasn’t enough to slow her down (though that was more by her own stubbornness than anything else), but it was enough to make her wonder, albeit briefly, if perhaps this was how Triana and her misguided followers had felt in the moments before their deaths. It was a sobering thought, and one that did little to keep her from being further distracted._

_Much to her relief, there was apparently still enough of her training left in her to keep from making any sound, or allowing even the least of those thoughts to make their way onto her face, and she covered up the misstep with her usual efficiency. She took less than half a moment to ensure that none of her companions had noticed that she’d taken a blow, and then threw herself back into the fray with renewed zeal; she was too new to be making mistakes so early, and she was not going to give any of the others (and especially not the damned Mother Confessor) any opportunity to mock her. Not yet. Not ever._

_Not that it mattered, anyway; the Confessor and her friends weren’t exactly wasting any of their their precious time in looking after their newly-acquired Mord-Sith anyway, and Cara was fortunate enough to carry on without any one of them noticing the injury she’d taken. The blood that flowed freely from her midsection, she knew, would be no issue; however much of the stuff there was, it would always be shrouded by her attire, the trademark leather of the Mord-Sith, designed specifically to conceal._

_Between the four of them and their individually unique skill sets, the battle lasted barely any time at all after that. It wasn’t even a few minutes before not a single D’Haran was left standing, but it was long enough to leave Cara far more breathless than such a brief fight should have._

_She prayed, despite her frustrated pride, that the Seeker and his friends would assume she was simply out of the practice of battle; humiliating as the thought was, it was far less so than allowing them to suspect that she might have been wounded. She could feel the sticky dark blood staining the insides of her leathers, and had never in her life been more grateful for the deliberate colouring of her clothing, uncomfortable as it was right then, and its prowess in keeping injuries unnoticed by enemies and allies alike._

_“Is everyone all right?” Richard asked, looking around, and Cara felt an irrational flare of aggravation at his insistence on_ caring _about every soul within a hundred leagues._

_“Fine,” she blurted out, swift and stubborn, not giving the Mother Confessor or the wizard a chance to speak. “Can we get on with this?”_

_“Cara,” Kahlan snapped, spitting out the name as though it were an unpleasant taste on her delicate Confessor's tongue. “It’s not polite to speak out of turn. Be nice.”_

_The words were deliberately patronising, seemingly intended to get a rise out of her, but Cara knew better than to retaliate. She settled instead for being silently grateful for the fact that the Mother Confessor (for all her so-called ‘insight’) had assumed that Cara’s rudeness was simply a personality trait, and hadn’t thought to look beneath the surface of her too-hasty utterance._

_“As you command,” she replied silkily, “Mother Confessor.”_

*

The sound of her own name (or, more accurately, her formal title) falling form Cara’s lips startled Kahlan so much that she almost lost her balance.

“Cara?” she managed, unable to conceal the surprise from her unaware companion, or to mask the flood of what felt dangerously like hope.

Cara didn’t immediately reply, though the look on her face was one that Kahlan hadn’t seen in a great many months. It wasn’t hatred (at least not quite), but it was as close as it could possibly be without the risk of Richard running her through with his sword for fear of what she’d do to his beloved. Cara had always been flawless in the subtle art of showing exactly the right amount of disdain towards her companions, without ever quite crossing into rebellion; she walked like an expert the fine line between cynicism and disrespect, and, had it been anyone else, Kahlan knew she would have been impressed by her talent for it.

From that one clipped sentence, though, it became readily apparent that Cara was reliving her time in the company of Richard and his friends now, that she had moved on at long last from the life she’d shared with Dahlia.

Briefly, Kahlan was forced to wonder why the spell hadn’t ended with her separation from Dahlia, or at least flashed forward to the re-breaking that had caused all this trouble in the first place, but she distinctly recalled Zedd mentioning that Cara wouldn’t just re-experience her life with Dahlia, but also those parts of it that had been (directly or otherwise) touched by her. It was not a pleasant thought; if she was honest, Kahlan was genuinely frightened of seeing how different the company of this Cara would be from the one she remembered.

After a pause of perhaps a few minutes, Cara shifted again, facing Kahlan with a quirked eyebrow and a frustrated expression that was so decidedly _her_ , even through the spell-induced blankness of her eyes.

“See?” she grumbled, as if the lone syllable was the cause of every wrong she had ever endured in all her life. “Everyone’s fine. Even the horses are fine. Spirits, even the _grass_ is fine.”

Kahlan laughed, finding herself suddenly overwhelmed by the desire to reach over and tousle Cara’s hair; it puzzled her somewhat, though not necessarily in an unpleasant way, that she was so amused by exactly the behaviour that she knew without a doubt would be angering the other world’s Kahlan beyond words.

Hadn’t it angered her, too, back in those early days? Hadn’t she too wanted to drive a dagger through Cara’s chest for every ill-advised remark she threw out, as if she had any right to speak to them at all, much less with such crudeness? It was exactly the same, and yet all she wanted now was to laugh and trail her fingers through Cara’s hair as though it was the most endearing thing in the world; for all the ways the two worlds’ Caras were similar, it seemed that Kahlan herself had changed beyond measure in the year that had passed.

“You’ll grow out of that,” she told the Mord-Sith, as if she could hear her. “One day, you’ll look back at this, and you won’t even recognise yourself.”

“Indeed,” Cara retorted drily, and Kahlan was forced not for the first time to remind herself that she couldn’t hear her. “Now... can we please get on with this absurd quest?”

*

_By some miracle, they did._

_Richard insisted (of course) that they linger an hour or two to bury the bodies of the slain D’Harans, and had pointedly ignored Cara’s observations that their felled foes would never have done the same for them. Once that task was complete, however, the Seeker was surprisingly quick to see them back on their way. Though the Abbot was going nowhere, he’d said by way of explanation, the tear in the veil certainly was, and, as much as it pained him to side with Cara (and it amused her beyond words that he’d admitted it aloud), time was most definitely not on their side._

_They rode until the sun went down, and set up camp for the night at the edge of what seemed to be the hundredth forest of their journey; Cara knew that was probably an exaggeration, given that they’d only been travelling a few days, but she hated forests with a passion second only to her hatred for Confessors, and it seemed like they’d spent almost the entire duration of their trip camped out in one. And, no doubt, they would be spending at least the following day trawling through one as well. Because, it seemed, the world and all those upon it wanted to make Cara miserable._

_As the Seeker and the wizard set to work building a fire, and the Confessor rummaged for food and supplies like some kind of serving wench, Cara quietly excused herself. Her side, where the blade had gone in, was still painful (not beyond her impressive threshold, of course, but it was slowly but surely heading in that direction), and the blood between her leathers and her skin was still hot and wet; both of those facts were bad omens about the state of the wound, and Cara was glad of the opportunity to clean and dress it by herself. Her companions, she vowed once again, would never need to know it had happened._

_Besides which, she mused with a touch of bitterness, it wasn’t as if they hadn’t all looked positively ecstatic to be rid of her for a few precious minutes, regardless of her reasons._

_Not bothering to remark upon their dismissal, she ventured swiftly into the forest, careful to cover over her tracks completely, and moved with efficiency until she reached a pathetically trickling excuse for a stream. It wasn’t much, and it wasn’t especially clean, but it would suffice for the task at hand, and Cara was in no position to be picky unless she wanted to be gone all night and return either to find that her companions had left without her, or to endure their inevitable disappointment at learning that she hadn’t been devoured by some sharp-toothed woodland creature._

_It was the first time Cara had tried to remove her leathers unassisted in almost as long as she’d been a Mord-Sith, and she realised only when her gloved fingers tangled helplessly in the hard-to-reach laces at her back, that it was in fact a frustratingly difficult task. Even when she and Richard had been catapulted into the future, just the two of them alone in a world that wanted them dead, she hadn’t needed to. The one time she had stripped in that cursed place, the Seeker had been gracious enough to lend a helping hand... though, she remembered with a primal grin, he hadn’t been quite so ready to comply with certain other requests she’d made of him that night._

_If she asked him, she supposed he would probably have been just as eager to help now (or, more likely, to order the Confessor to do so in his place, a mental image that almost made her choke on carefully-stifled laughter), and she supposed it would have saved her a lot of trouble if she’d simply done so. Perhaps she should have swallowed her pride and asked for assistance, but – in addition to not wanting the Seeker and his friends to believe she was anything less than perfectly skilled in every way – she knew that exposing herself in their presence would also mean letting them see that she was wounded, and that was not going to happen. However difficult the act of removing her own clothing was, it was far less painful than the alternative._

_She was about halfway through loosening her laces when she heard a distinct rustling in the brush. Abandoning her task with an irritated huff, she reached for her agiels, wishing despite the impossibility of it that it would prove to be a wolf or a shadrin or some other fearsome beast. A gar, even, and damn the fact that it would mean certain death. Anything. Wild animal or unfathomable monster, Cara did not care. Anything at all, she silently prayed, so long as it wasn’t—_

_“What are you doing?”_

_—the Mother Confessor._

_Cara growled._

_“I am attempting to clean myself,” she snapped, as if it was absurdly obvious (which, she couldn’t help thinking, it truly was). “Is that a criminal offence as well?”_

_Kahlan raised an eyebrow; she looked more amused than annoyed, and that infuriated Cara more than anything else she could have imagined. Was she an entertainer now, whose sole purpose was to bring amusement to a damned Confessor?_

_“You’re not doing a particularly good job of it,” Kahlan remarked scathingly, and Cara knew she was being goaded into raising a hand against the woman. Well, she thought bitterly, the Confessor would have to try harder than that; Cara would not rise to her ill-conceived bait. “Are you sure you’ve done this before?”_

_“I’m more than capable,” Cara snarled. “Thank you.”_

_She turned back to the pitiful-looking stream, a little too sharply, and fought with all of her training to suppress the grimace that wanted to escape her as her side shifted the wrong way and the pain blossomed into an inferno. Though she did (or so she felt) an admirable job of keeping the discomfort to herself, she could tell by the poorly-concealed chuckle that escaped the Confessor’s lips that she’d caught some trace of it somehow. Knowing that only made Cara even more furious, and she redoubled her labours over the laces (to say nothing of her efforts to ignore the woman standing so deliberately behind her)._

_“Are you sure you don’t need some help?” the Confessor asked after a moment, kindness wrapped in venom._

_“Do I look like I need help?” Care shot back._

_“Yes,” Kahlan replied effortlessly, and Cara felt a pair of unfamiliar and unwanted fingers working at the laces, just below her own and just out of reach. “For such a fearsome Mord-Sith, you look like—”_

_“Finish that sentence,” Cara growled, ignoring the way her pulse was suddenly racing, “and I swear to the spirits, I will finish_ you _, whatever the Lord Rahl may do to me.”_

_Kahlan’s fingers tightened, pinching. “He is not the ‘Lord Rahl’.”_

_Cara closed her eyes. At any other time, in any other place, she would have pressed the issue, pushed the Confessor until one or the other of them ended up dead (or worse)... but not here, and not now, and certainly not with the Confessor’s hands so surprisingly gentle as they worked with nimble skill at her laces._

_It was too familiar, too achingly resonant of the way her sisters would undress her, and of the way Dahlia would linger with teasing touches at her shoulders and hips because she knew it would make Cara ever more hungry for her. She felt her throat close around a sudden indefinable lump, and swallowed hard._

_In her mind’s eye, she saw Dahlia, her eyes sparkling like stars and her lips quirked upwards in undisguised amusement at the sight of Cara so weakened as to accept help from – of all the people in all the world – a Confessor._

_She would laugh at her, Cara knew, but, in the same breath as she mocked, she would kiss and caress the embarrassment away. Of course she would laugh, because it was absurd... but then, even before she was done entertaining herself, she would be falling to her knees and allowing Cara to dominate her until no trace of the hated humiliation remained. She would supplicate herself, bend her body and her soul to all those parts of Cara that needed them most, and allow her to regain what dignity she’d lost in being so weakened. That was Dahlia, always so giving of herself, if only to Cara._

_The sudden aching need to be with Dahlia, with her sisters, was dangerously close to overpowering; had it been anyone but the Mother Confessor at her back, Cara might have succumbed to the feeling, and allowed it (coupled in no small part, she supposed, with the dull pulse of pain) to drive her to her knees. But she didn’t. Because it_ was _the Mother Confessor, and Cara would never bend before her._

_Instead, she did something she’d never imagined herself strong enough to do; she let the discussion drop._

_It didn’t matter that this woman – this fool Confessor – didn’t see her beloved Seeker as the Lord Rahl, or that she refused to acknowledge the truth in Cara’s words though she knew it just as well as anyone else. None of that mattered, and none of it would be allowed to affect Cara’s duty anyway. The only thing that mattered was that Cara knew tat the title of Lord Rahl belonged to Richard, and that she had pledged herself to him._

_She wouldn’t fight – not here and not now and not about this – because her hatred for this woman was irrelevant; Cara was not sworn to protect Kahlan Amnell, and it was a waste of her energy even to want to best her._

_No, she decided; there would be no more of this. She would close her eyes and will away the tension sparking suddenly behind her eyes. She would ignore the way the muscles in her back flinched and twitched with ghostly memories of Dahlia’s hands lingering exactly where Kahlan’s were. She would not rise to the bait of the Confessor’s words, dipped in honey and oozing with poison. She would do nothing._

_She would, above all else , be strong._

*

Kahlan remembered the conversation, albeit vaguely. It had been the first time she and Cara had been alone together since the incident with the kidnapped children in the Drowning Caves; she had stumbled on Cara struggling to undress, and had offered (with no small amount of malicious bemusement) to help with the task.

A hot crimson blush stained Kahlan’s features as she remembered, recalling how she’d only made the offer because she’d known how completely it would humiliate the Mord-Sith to be so dependent on a Confessor for such a simple task as taking off her clothes, and she made a mental note to apologise for this (and, no doubt, many other such incidents) when Cara came out of the spell. 

She grimaced as she remembered the fight that had followed, intense almost to the point violence. She had insisted over and over again that Richard was not the Lord Rahl, and that Cara was serving the Seeker whether she wanted to admit to it or not. Cara, of course, had met her angry words with an unrestrained fury of her own, insisting that Kahlan was a blind fool if she believed her own words for even a moment. Ultimately, they probably would have come to blows, if they hadn’t been brought to a necessary stalemate by Cara’s having been suitably unclothed for Kahlan to realise that she’d taken a blade to the side.

Cara, of course, had been wild with rage athat the injury had been discovered by her most hated enemy, and had sent the Confessor away before Kahlan had had the chance to suggest that she let Zedd see it. Kahlan, blood fired as it had been by the fight, had been more than happy to leave the Mord-Sith alone with her wounds, and had departed her company with ready enthusiasm.

It had been a painfully embarrassing encounter, and one that Kahlan was not at all proud of. Cara had been in pain for the rest of the trip to Ulrich, and Kahlan felt a violent lurch in her stomach as she recalled just how amused she’d been by every repressed flinch and every poorly-concealed grimace. She hadn’t told the others about it, because she’d known that Richard would have insisted on making Zedd heal the Mord-Sith and Kahlan (vindictive as she had been towards Cara at the time) had wanted to see her suffer for her stubborn pride. As entertained as she’d been at the time, now she felt sick to her stomach to think of it.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, trailing her fingers through Cara’s hair. “I’m sorry for the way I treated you. I shouldn’t have. I should’ve realised you were everything that Richard said you were, and I should have given you a chance to prove yourself.”

Cara mumbled something indistinct, and Kahlan sighed; if the remainder of the spell was anything like this, she had a worrying suspicion that the list of incidents she’d have to apologise for would be longer than even her impressive memory could retain. She wanted to commit every last moment, even the ones that revealed the worst in them both... but she was already afraid of how deeply lost in self-loathing she would be by the end of it. And she knew that she would be of little help to Cara if she couldn’t even look herself in the eye.

Trying not to think too hard, she waited for the in-spell fight to escalate like the one she recalled so clearly, to hear Cara’s voice raised like the lash of an agiel against her, waited to hear the fury pouring from the lips of the woman she’d only just come to realise exactly how deeply she cared for, waited to feel herself recoil. She was prepared for it, expectant and on edge, ready to hate herself for her own pettiness and disdain... but the moment never came.

“Thank you,” Cara mumbled instead.

If Kahlan hadn’t heard it with her own ears, she would never have believed it.

*

_“You’re welcome.”_

_The cruel amusement in the Mother Confessor’s voice was completely unavoidable, and Cara was sure to inject exactly the same amount of cool disdain into her own words as she tilted her head. “You may go now.”_

_Her leathers weren’t completely undone, though they were close enough to it that she could manage by herself, but she wasn’t sure she could handle the humiliation of another moment in Kahlan’s company; besides which, it would only take another lace or two before the Confessor would have no choice but to realise that Cara was wounded, and she had no intention of trying to explain away the oozing blood._

_“Don’t be silly,” Kahlan said. “I’ve done it this far, it’d be pointless if I didn’t finish it now.” Her fingers tightened almost imperceptibly on the remaining laces. “It’s practically done.”_

_“No,” Cara insisted, holding her body rigid. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Leave me.”_

_Kahlan used her position to turn the Mord-Sith around, those piercing blue eyes meeting her own. Cara, for her part, summoned all the inner strength she possessed to keep from lashing out at the woman in front of her, reminding herself again and again of how well she was doing in restraining the urge to assault her. She was going to play nice, even if it killed her._

_“I know you don’t like me,” Kahlan said, as though it wasn’t the most obvious thing in the world, as though she couldn’t see as plain as daylight exactly those thoughts ricocheting through Cara’s mind. “And I don’t like you, either. But refusing my help when it’ll just take you another hour to do it on your own is just foolish, Cara. And it’s a waste of resources. So be quiet and just hold still. The sooner it’s done, the sooner we can go our separate ways.” She hesitated, eyes dancing with calloused bemusement. “Believe me when I say I have no intention of seeing you naked.”_

_“That’s a shame,” Cara smirked, rising to the bait this time because she knew she could best it. “I’m fairly certain it’s a sight you’d find appealing.” She bared her teeth, appraising the Confessor’s immodest attire. “Or are you afraid that you may end up breaking your golden Confessor’s rule of looking but not touching?”_

_“Just be quiet,” Kahlan sighed, sounding like a weary schoolteacher as she turned Cara back around, not at all gently. “You’re not in your Mord-Sith temple anymore, in case you haven’t noticed.”_

_As the Confessor’s fingers resumed the admittedly arduous task of unlacing her, Cara had never been more aware of that particular fact._

_She had never longed for Dahlia’s touch so much as she did just at that moment, though they had been separated for a great many months by the time Triana had turned around to betray her. She had not thought of her old schoolmate at all in that time, not once, and had found herself a better Mord-Sith for having dismissed her. Now, though... with Triana neatly removed from her affections (and from the world of the living as well), and the only companionship for a thousand leagues in any direction being the Seeker, the Mother Confessor, and a centuries-old wizard... well, Cara supposed it was only natural that she would find herself missing the familiar hands and the more familiar eyes._

_“Cara,” Kahlan said, cutting into her thoughts with her usual blitheness; her voice was heavy this time, though, and a twitch ran the up length of Cara’s spine. Though she longed to be wrong, she knew exactly what was coming next. “Why didn’t you tell us you’re hurt?”_

_A low hiss rippled at the back Cara’s throat, escaping to the cooling air before she could stop it._

_“I’m not_ hurt _,” she shot back stubbornly. “It’s a scratch, that’s all. Not worth mentioning.”_

_Kahlan sighed, the frustrated and irritable sigh of a woman who was used to no-nonsense answers and subjects who cowered in fear at her questions. Cara was certainly not among the latter, and she had no intention of providing the former when the truth of it would compromise her. And so she merely scowled, even as Kahlan rose up in aggressive defiance of her words._

_“Not even_ you _are stupid enough to believe that,” she observed cuttingly, and Cara hated how right she was. “If you did, you wouldn’t be here, trying to clean it in secret before anyone found out about it.”_

_“It’s no concern of yours,” Cara said, switching tactics with practiced fluidity._

_“It’s every concern of mine if you end up dead,” Kahlan replied, smooth but a little heated. “Richard wants you with us. I don’t have to agree with him, and I don’t have to like it... but I do have to go along with it, and that means stopping you bleeding to death when your stubborn Mord-Sith pride gets in the way of your common sense.”_

_“I don’t need the Lord Rahl’s pity,” Cara spat viciously. “Nor do I need yours, Mother Confessor, or anyone else’s. Go away.”_

_“Believe me, Cara,” Kahlan retorted acidly. “I have a great many reasons to pity you, but this isn’t one of them.”_

_Turning away in undisguised disgust, Cara took the opportunity presented by the Mother Confessor’s remark to glance down at the gash in her side. It didn’t look as bad as it felt, though her leathers were wet and sticky with blood. It would, she was sure, heal within a few days; the Confessor’s so-called concern (hypocritical as it was) was both unwanted and utterly unnecessary._

_Shifting uncomfortably, and not just because of the pain, Cara knelt before the stream, scooping up two palms full of water in a bid at cleaning first the sullied clothing and then the injury itself. Of course, because the world was always going to take the side of the Mother Confessor, the stream’s limited supply of useable water made both of these tasks frustratingly fruitless; consequently, the only success that Cara’s efforts yielded was in making herself look a fool._

_“This is pointless, Cara,” Kahlan said, and Cara could tell that it was taking every ounce of effort she had to keep her voice kind and gentle. “Come back to camp, for pity’s sake. Zedd can heal it for you.”_

_“I don’t need the wizard’s help,” Cara rasped, and a wisp of frustrated discomfort bubbled over into her voice despite her best efforts to keep it concealed._

_“I’m sure you don’t,” Kahlan agreed, chuckling maliciously. “But even you must realise you’re no use to Richard, or to any of us, if you’re in too much pain to even lift your own agiels.”_

_“I’m not in pain!” Cara exploded, even as her side protested the point with a white-hot lance of suffering. “It’s nothing!”_

_Kahlan rolled her eyes. “You’re not among your sisters now, Cara,” she said again, real spite edging into the truth of the statement._

_“I know that!” Cara snarled, and hated herself for admitting it aloud._

_“You never will be again,” Kahlan went on relentlessly, and Cara wanted to hurt her again and again until she could no longer stand._

_“Are you trying to make me strike you down?” she demanded, allowing every ounce of the anger she felt to paint itself across her ever-tightening features._

_“I’m trying,” the Mother Confessor said, speaking slowly and softly, “to figure out precisely who you’re trying to impress.”_

*

“You’re deluded if you think I’m trying to impress you.”

Kahlan blinked; though she was so certain she remembered the incident, she definitely didn’t recall this conversation. She was fairly sure, if Cara had said even half of the things she was saying now, she would have remembered them as well.

She’d forgotten, admittedly, just how provocative Cara had been in her early days, and how easy it would have been for Kahlan to rise to her deliberate goading, but she’d never forgotten the words themselves. She’d never forgotten the insults and jibes that Cara had directed specifically at her; those words – those very specific provocations – certainly were not happening here. And it struck her once again, almost as a blow, to realise just how fundamentally the existence of Dahlia in Cara’s life had changed even the tiniest, barely-remembered moments of her later life.

“I know what you are,” Cara hissed.

Kahlan sighed; somehow, rather she suspected she was about to receive a crude diatribe on the evils of Confessors. Aas much as it pained her to admit it, given her own behaviour during Cara’s early weeks among them (however goaded she may have been), she also suspected that her other self quite probably deserved it.

Would it have killed her to be more understanding? Cara hadn’t been accepting of her, of course, but Kahlan had an intimate understanding of how Mord-Sith were made, and she’d had that same understanding even back then. Cara, by contrast, had not had the same luxury of knowledge when it came to Confessors; Kahlan had known, just as well as she knew now, that the Mord-Sith were only allowed to know as much as could be harnessed to fuel their hate and their bloodlust, and everything else was left unspoken. She’d seen, both before and since Cara had joined their group, exactly how manipulative the Mord-Sith were, and had come to understand just how manipulated they were in kind. She should have known better, her broken heart cried out. She should have done so much more.

“You are so afraid that I’ll take him from you,” Cara went on, and Kahlan blinked. “You believe, if you turn your back for even a moment, by the time you turn back, he’ll have chosen me.”

A hot flush coloured Kahlan’s cheeks; she had, most definitely, felt that way for a very long time. It upset her, far more than it should have after so long, to know that Cara had seen through her practiced carelessness so easily, that she had seen that side of her despite her best efforts to keep it hidden; _her_ Cara, of course, had never broached that particular subject so casually, at least not to her face, though Kahlan realised she must have known it too.

She wasn’t so innocent as to believe that the Mord-Sith hadn’t ever tried anything with Richard, but she was also rational enough to know that Richard would never have allowed it. Not ever. And all the more so, she realised now, if he’d ever had the faintest idea of how completely the Mord-Sith believed that their sexuality was just another twisted tool to be harnessed in their service to the Lord Rahl.

“A Mord-Sith’s prowess in serving the Lord Rahl...” Cara went on, a cool echo of Kahlan’s thoughts, “...in every way, is legendary. Do you truly believe he won’t be at least curious, given time enough to think about it?”

Kahlan closed her eyes, not wanting to imagine what her other self would have to say in response to that. Of all the possible experiences they’d been thorugh during their time together, why did Cara have to remember the most uncomfortable, the most humiliating for both of them? Why couldn’t she remember something comparatively pain-free, like the time she’d rendered Kahlan unconscious through the touch of the agiel to an infected wound?

Next to this, Kahlan would have taken a thousand of them.

*

_“I know what you’re doing, you know.”_

_Cara grinned, all teeth. “Oh? Do tell.”_

_Kahlan nodded, as professional as Cara was primal. “You’re trying to make me so angry that I wash my hands of you.”_

_Not wanting to give her companion any rope to hang her with, Cara merely quirked an eyebrow._

_“You’re trying to make me turn my back on you,” Kahlan went on. “You’re hoping I’ll decide that you’re not worth the trouble of talking to you – and, believe me, Cara, you’re not – and walk away. You want me to let you clean your wounds in secret and be the proud and arrogant Mord-Sith you’ve always been. You’re hoping to make me hate you so much that I’ll just turn around and leave you here to suffer alone, and not speak a word of this to Richard or Zedd.”_

_Her eyes darkened, a power not unlike confession, but fuelled this time with malice instead of magic. Cara met her gaze with a heat-crackling glare of her own, refusing to back down even as she hated how transparent she had become in this woman’s company._

_“It’s not going to happen,” Kahlan told her flatly. “I’d rather see you humiliated by kindness than satisfied by cruelty.”_

_More than anything, Cara wanted to roll her eyes, to dismiss the accusation and say that Kahlan was avoiding the real issue, that of Richard’s inevitable unfaithfulness. She wanted to cast aside everything Kahlan had said, but she couldn’t. She, who had never been lost for a retort or a comeback in all her life, was lacking one now... because she knew, just as well as Kahlan did, that it would be hollow._

_Kahlan’s determination, her insistence on seeing Cara’s injury tended to was painfully resonant of Dahlia’s overprotective impulses, and the wave of nostalgia that coursed unbidden through Cara’s veins was almost enough to drive her senseless with aching, pulsing, irrepressible longing. She couldn’t argue, as desperately as she wanted to, because the Mother Confessor was (albeit just in that one weak moment) stronger than she was._

_Kahlan Amnell had her friends, the Seeker and the wizard. She had her Confessor’s power, the loyalty of the Midlands. She had faith and her belief and her love for the Seeker. She had the world at her feet._

_All Cara had was her shorn hair to remind her that she had nothing._

_“I don’t need your help,” she told Kahlan, hating how much like a child she sounded. “And I do not want it, either.”_

_“I’m sure you don’t,” Kahlan acknowledged, latching on to the not-quite tremor in Cara’s voice. “And, trust me, Zedd probably doesn’t want to give it to you either. But you’re injured, and he has the power of healing at his disposal. He’d be an idiot if he refused to offer it to you, and you’d be even more of one if you refused to take it from him. And, in being so pig-headed and stubborn, you’d both be denying Richard one of his protectors.”_

_That struck a chord, and Cara knew that Kahlan could see it._

_“Isn’t that why you insisted on joining us?” the Confessor pressed on, emboldened by Cara’s unwitting reaction. “So you could serve and protect Richard? Who does it serve, Cara, to be so stubborn?”_

_Loathing the Mother Confessor more than anyone else in the world right at that moment, and knowing far too intimately that this was more an act of submission than anything else (it was not ‘acceptance’, whatever Kahlan may say of it; it was weakness, plain and simple), Cara growled her consent._

_“Very well, then,” she snapped, letting the other woman know by the tone of her voice just how furiously she was protesting this humiliation. “But only for Lord Rahl.”_

_“The_ Seeker _,” Kahlan said, with a smile that didn’t hold a single grain of honesty, “will be very glad.”_


	19. Chapter 19

The whole time Cara had been embroiled in memories of Dahlia, Kahlan had felt uncomfortable. She had wanted to put as much distance as possible between herself and what she was witnessing, even as her body (and parts of her heart, though she was still denying those) had insisted on drawing ever closer to it. She had been caught in the thrall of it, suspended like a moth in the flame that would be its demise, knowing it would burn her alive and leave behind nothing but a hollowed-out shell of self-destruction, but unable to resist the thrill of the unknown or the giddy enticement of what was forbidden.

What she felt now, watching from a dissociated distance as Cara mumbled a handful of thinly-veiled insults at a phantom vision of an imagined Mother Confessor... Kahlan had never wanted anything so much as she wanted to dive into the spell (even knowing, as she did, that it was impossible) and be there too. Really and truly be there, not simply watching from her safely dissociated distance, or through the white film that shrouded Cara’s eyes, but to truly see what was happening, as intimately as if it was she and not some other world’s Kahlan doing and saying these things.

She didn’t just want to see Cara anymore. She didn’t just want to see the look of practiced disdain on the Mord-Sith’s face, didn’t want to study it until her head ached and she imagined the sheen of carefully-hidden pain locked away beneath the surface, seeking patterns and feelings that may or may not have ever existed. She didn’t just want to see painted on Cara’s face how badly they’d both behaved back in those dark early days, and she didn’t just want to see who Cara had once been.

She wanted to see herself, too.

It wasn’t enough to just see Cara’s reactions anymore. It wasn’t enough to see the differences in the Mord-Sith and to remember those moments the way they’d happened to her Cara. Because it wasn’t only Cara who was different now. Just as the rippling effect of Dahlia’s influence had extended to Dennee, it was extending now to Kahlan herself, and she wanted to see that Kahlan almost more than she’d wanted to see anything else since the spell had begun.

She wanted to know herself, this version of herself that was so different and still so fundamentally her, the Kahlan who had known a Cara that hadn’t tortured Dennee. She wanted to know the Kahlan whose sister had been killed painlessly and swiftly. She wanted to see a Kahlan who hadn’t fought with Cara that night at the stream, but had managed – against all odds – to talk her into letting Zedd heal her injuries.

She wanted to see that Kahlan, because she wanted to learn from her. Even though every fibre of her being insisted that it was only because Cara was different that she herself had become so too, it didn’t matter. Not right then. At the very heart of it, it was still her. It was still Kahlan Amnell.

Did that Kahlan have feelings for her Cara? she wondered briefly, and instantly wanted to kick herself for even daring to think about it. It was none of her business, she knew, even though it was technically far more her business than anyone else’s; it was too personal, too intimate, and too confusing for her to dare dwell upon it, even for a moment. And yet, there was a corner of her mind (the same corner that insisted it was _that_ Cara and not her own that she was feeling these things for) that really did want to know. It would be less difficult, she imagined, if she could know beyond all doubt that she wasn’t the only Mother Confessor who had ever felt this way.

“You see?” she heard herself murmuring, cupping Cara’s cheek in her hand again, so she could feel the juxtaposition of tension and softness flushed through her skin. “You see the effect you have on us? When you change, everyone around you changes. How can you not see how important you are?”

The question was a foolish one, she knew, because Cara had never been able to see that side of herself. Even before all this, it had been alien to her to think that she might have some merit beyond the duty she had pledged to Richard. That she might be worth something more than the weight of bodies dead at her feet.

In the tomb, that never-ending day when Cara had failed to give voice to her true feelings despite her best efforts, she’d mumbled something about how unimportant her life was, and expressed a willingness to end her own if it might give Kahlan even a chance of surviving a few hours longer. Kahlan had insisted, because she had come to care about Cara as so much more than Richard’s irritating Mord-Sith by then, that their lives held equal merit.

They’d both known it wasn’t true, though it was only Cara who didn’t realise that, were it not for the prophecy that spoke of the Mother Confessor’s pure heart, it would have been; she truly believed that Kahlan Amnell was worth more than she was, not because she was the Mother Confessor, but because she was Kahlan. She hadn’t realised, Kahlan could tell, just how monumental a change that demonstrated in her, or how close it was to the ever-elusive expression of friendship that still hovered so frustratingly out of her reach.

Kahlan had never met anyone with such high self-esteem as Cara, or anyone with such low self-worth.

“Tell her,” she heard herself murmur, voice low and insistent, even as Cara loosed a barely-audible sigh at the gentle caress of her thumb against the curve of her jaw. “That other Kahlan... tell her, Cara... tell her she’d better treat you well. Tell her what you’ll become... the beautiful person you’ll grow into.” Her breath caught in her throat. “Tell her, Cara.”

Cara mumbled something that sounded remarkably like ‘ _no_ ’.

“Tell her,” Kahlan commanded, almost feverish. “Tell her that, one day, she’s going to need you more than she needs air.”

*

_“Zedd.”_

_The note of inarguable authority in Kahlan’s voice made Cara’s blood run hot. She wanted to wriggle out of the other woman’s grasp, to run back into the forest and flee from this humiliating confrontation. She wanted to escape, but the Mother Confessor held her by the mostly-unlaced back of her leathers with such a firm grip that she knew freeing herself from it would be an impossible task. She rather suspected that the tightness of Kahlan’s hold on her clothing was less to do with keeping her from fleeing, however, and more to do with keeping her modesty in place (Kahlan, of course, was far more discomfited by the idea of Cara’s flesh being left exposed than Cara herself was), and that thought amused her just enough to take the slightest edge off her unease._

_“Is something wrong?” the wizard asked, eyes darkening as they passed over Cara, then immediately lightening as they locked on Kahlan._

_He had been crouching over a pleasantly-crackling fire, nursing his old bones and trying to get comfortable, and Cara could just about make out the silhouette of the Seeker a couple of feet away as he dropped the collection of wood he’d been gathering and moved to join them. Cara, as she caught the flash of concern in his eyes as they darted like blood flies over Kahlan’s flawless form, wanted nothing more than to leap on the fire and burn before this damned conversation had a chance to take place.... before the Mother Confessor had a chance to lock Cara in the inescapable shackles of humiliation._

_“Cara’s been hurt,” she said, without preamble, and, not giving Cara a moment to recover from the lambaste of her words, shoved the Mord-Sith indecorously at the still-crouching wizard._

_Aggravation pulsed through Cara as her leathers fell open without the restraining hand of the Confessor on them, and she heaved an irate sigh as the eyes of both men turned to the exposed skin beneath. She closed her eyes in a bid at shutting out the looks on their faces as they caught sight of the blood-soaked insides of the outfit, and willed them to stare at any other part of her than the part that was bleeding. It wasn’t, after all, as if she didn’t have several considerably more appealing body parts for them to admire._

_“It’s nothing,” she said for what felt like the hundredth time, speaking through clenched teeth as it became apparent that neither of them were about to be distracted._

_“Why didn’t you tell us?” Richard asked her, and she was grateful that she’d shut her eyes because she couldn’t bring herself to face the disapproval of Lord Rahl right at that moment._

_“Because...” she ground out, frustrated, “...it’s_ nothing _. Do you people not comprehend the basic meaning of that word? It means that the problem you perceive does not actually exist. It means I’m fine. It means that my so-called ‘injury’ is minor, and that it does not require any additional care. I could have cleaned and treated it by myself, with no difficulty and no time wasted. It means – and I cannot stress this enough – that my condition is not a matter worth bringing to the Lord R—” She cut herself off quickly, remembering just in time that Richard didn’t approve of the title. “—to the_ Seeker’s _attention.”_

_“Cara,” Richard said, with a gentleness that was as alien as it was unwanted. “You should never feel like you have to hide things like this from us. You—”_

_“You people!” she shouted, exasperated. “It’s all about sympathy and compassion and empathy! I am a Mord-Sith. Little surface cuts like this mean nothing to us. Why can’t you understand this?” She could feel her frustration boiling over, and was too far gone to care that she was raising her voice to the Lord Rahl. “I’m not trying to spare your squeamish feelings, Seeker, or the blushes of your precious Confessor, or to conserve the supposed healing prowess of your wizard. I am simply trying to tell you that_ this _is_ nothing _.”_

_“You’re not among your sisters now,” Richard told her softly, and his patience annoyed her almost as much as his gentleness._

_Cara desperately wished they would all stop reminding her of that particular fact. She knew that these people, these damned moral fools, were not her sisters. She knew she would never again know the homely warmth of a Mord-Sith temple, or the press of her sisters’ flesh against her own. She knew it, and hearing it repeated a thousand times could not possible impress the fact any more upon her than it already was. It just came a little closer to breaking her apart every time she heard it, that was all._

_“...and we do have a wizard,” Richard was saying. “A wizard who’s more than happy to share his talents. You don’t have to suffer just because it’s all you know.”_

_Behind her, Cara knew the Mother Confessor was smirking, thoroughly enjoying her discomfort. “See?” she said, sounding obscenely self-satisfied. “I told you, Richard would want you—”_

_“Fine!” Cara erupted, furious. “Do it then, wizard, if you must. Heal me, if only it will make you all shut up about it.” A low growl escaped her punctuating the dissatisfaction that she sorely hoped would be obvious to them all. “I don’t wish for your spells, or your healing, but if it will stop the Mother Confessor breathing down my neck like a lovesick puppy, and stop the Seeker tormenting me with yet another of his self-righteous speeches, I will do anything you idiots ask of me.”_

_Zedd cocked his head to the side, studying her with exaggerated thoughtfulness. Even he, it seemed, was enjoying her discomfort now._

_“I believe,” he said, turning to address his friends, “that that’s how the Mord-Sith say ‘thank you’.”_

*

Despite her sober thoughts, Kahlan couldn’t quite keep from laughing as Cara folded her arms across her chest and pouted like a chastened five-year-old. Though there was still no emotion to be seen in the bottomless white of her spell-shaded eyes, the Mord-Sith’s disdainful expression was even more telling than usual, and Kahlan drank down the flickers of familiarity like they were a fine and fragrant wine.

“You never were any good at knowing what’s best for you,” she said, a little sadness touching the amusement.

Unbidden, her mind swam with thoughts of how this had all begun – the spell, the pain, the memories, the surfacing emotions. She thought, almost against her will, of that moment when she’d tracked Cara out into the forest, watching sadly as Cara vented her frustrations on the trunk of a tree, the blood on her knuckles mingling with the pouring rain. It was only a few days ago, but already it felt like so much more, and, without thinking, Kahlan reached out to take one of Cara’s hands in both of her own.

The leather of her gloves was rough but supple, and Kahlan allowed her fingertips to explore the contours of the fabric with thrall-like attentiveness. She could feel where it was slightly thinner at the palm and over the knuckles, worn from too much wear and too much violence, and where it was thicker at the wrist where a little more protection was a little more necessary. She could feel everything, and imagined that she could feel the rawest essence of Cara radiating through the well-worn fabric.

It didn’t take long for her to commit every stitch to memory, every shifting seam and every rough curve, and Cara remained mostly unresponsive the whole time; though Kahlan knew the Mord-Sith would be furious if she discovered that Kahlan had taken the opportunity of her stillness to hold her hand like some kind of affection-addled schoolgirl, she couldn’t help herself. Idly, though she knew no good could possibly come of it, she considered removing the glove entirely and allowing herself the rare privilege of touching the oft-concealed bare skin beneath.

“That’s enough,” Cara said sulkily, before Kahlan had the chance to act on the florid impulse. “You can stop this nonsense now.”

Chuckling, Kahlan leaned back, settling herself at Cara’s side again and releasing her hand with a reluctance that rippled across her back. “All right.”

She knew perfectly well, just as she always did that Cara was talking to one of her phantom companions (Zedd, more than likely), but she didn’t care. It gave her some comfort to pretend that it was her Cara, and that she was talking to her, and that her hollow words warranted some reaction on her part. It gave her solace to pretend that she wasn’t completely useless. If she didn’t have that tiny shred of worth, she would lose her mind.

“You people,” Cara grumbled. “You, with your empathy. You would all see me dead in a heartbeat if you were the ones driving the blade. But, because it was somebody else’s doing, suddenly it becomes your duty to bandage me and heal me and tend to me as if I were an infant who had never been injured before.”

“It was difficult for us,” Kahlan said, before she could stop herself; it wouldn’t do either of them any good to speak her case, she knew that perfectly well, but still, something inside her was crying out to speak the words even so. “You spent all your life serving the man Richard gave up everything to kill. You only turned against him because you thought it would serve you, and you only joined Richard because your own sisters cast you out. You were selfish and calloused and more cold-hearted than anyone I’d ever met. But Richard trusted you, and we trusted Richard. It was difficult, Cara, for all of us.”

Cara barked an insincere rumble that wasn't quite a laugh, and it made Kahlan feel as though she’d been plunged into ice water.

“You don’t know the meaning of the word,” Cara grumbled, and Kahlan wondered whether her other self had made the same point.

Some small part of her wanted to argue the issue, simply because it would give her something to do beyond sitting there helplessly and staring at the woman who should not have been evoking such feelings in her, but she fought down the impulse to retaliate; if she was remembering the incident correctly, however changed it was now, it was so early in their time together that she had no doubt Cara was already being lambasted by the other Kahlan (and, no doubt, by Zedd as well). It was only thanks to Richard’s authoritative pacifism during conversations like this one that Cara had survived those early weeks at all.

“You didn’t exactly make it easy on yourself, you know,” Kahlan heard herself mumble nonetheless, despite her determination to not play the antagonist. “You went out of your way to irritate anyone who came within a hundred leagues of you. You can hardly blame us for rising to the bait when you made it so easy for us.”

Even to her own ears, it sounded like a futile point, and she knew that, if Cara could have heard her, she would have rolled her eyes until they threatened to fall out of their sockets. As troublesome as Cara had made it her duty to be in those first few weeks (months, Kahlan supposed, and perhaps even beyond that), Kahlan herself hadn’t really needed very much persuasion to treat the Mord-Sith with all the respect attributed to shadrin guano. None of them had, truthfully, except Richard, and neither she nor Zedd had really listened to his insistences that she was changing. Kahlan regretted it now, of course... but, at the time, she’d been almost glad of Cara’s abrasive attitude because it had given her legitimate reason to be just as spiteful in return.

“We’re both different people now,” she said softly, and she couldn’t even pretend that she was speaking to Cara.

*

_Though she would never admit it to any of her companions, Cara couldn’t deny that she felt worlds better after allowing the wizard to apply his magical ministrations._

_As a rule, she tried to avoid magic, and especially healing magic, wherever possible; she was a Mord-Sith, and, though she could reflect most spells without difficulty, the pulse of the stuff still left a sour taste in her mouth. Still, there was no way to avoid how pleasant her body felt with all the throbbing pain dealt with and the unpleasant stickiness of blood no longer coating her skin._

_She had insisted on disappearing to wash out her leathers in the barely-existent stream, even though it was dark by the time Zedd had finished treating her, and when she finally returned to the campsite (perhaps an hour or so later), they were all fast asleep._

_All except the Seeker, of course, who had opted to take first watch._

_“Feeling better?” he asked her; though he kept his voice low so as not to wake his friends, it was filled nonetheless with something that could almost have been actual concern._

_It was strange, she couldn’t help thinking, to be addressed without malice. There was none of the Mother Confessor’s veiled threats in Richard’s voice, nor was there any hint of the poorly-concealed disdain that was so much a part of the wizard. Richard was not like either of them; he didn’t like her, at least not exactly, but he had an obvious respect for her particular skills, and he clearly valued her prowess... and that, really, was all Cara had ever wanted from her Lord Rahl._

_“Infinitely,” she deadpanned in response to his question, not bothering to match his soft-spoken tone. “It’s remarkable how much better one feels when one’s clothes are cleaned. Not that I’d imagine the wizard knows anything about that particular skill set.”_

_Richard chuckled at that, and the sound was so pure and so genuine that it caught Cara completely by surprise; she had no idea how long it had been since she’d heard real and honest laughter, least of all in response to one of her own remarks, but it was long enough that the sound caused an uncomfortable twitch to trickle its way down her spine._

_“They don’t like me,” she observed, in a bid at cutting off the sensation before it dug its claws too tightly into her. “Especially the Mother Confessor. She only wants me spared now so that hers can be the hand to end me later.”_

_“It’s not her fault,” Richard said gently. He reached out, clearly wanting to place a reassuring hand on her shoulder, but Cara flinched out of reach before he had a chance to make contact. “She’s been raised to see the Mord-Sith in a particular way. Zedd, too. And neither of them were there when you and I took on the Master together in the future. They haven’t seen what I’ve seen in you, not yet. Until they do, it’s only natural they’d be suspicious.”_

_Cara shrugged, dismissing the point. “I’m not here for their approval,” she told him. “I don’t care what they think. I’m here because I swore to serve you, because you are the true Lord Rahl.”_

_A low sigh escaped Richard’s lips, and she knew exactly why even before he opened his mouth to voice it._

_“Cara...” he said, chastising but gentle. “We’ve been through this. I’m not—”_

_“You may deny the throne,” Cara told him, before he could finish, “but you can’t deny that it’s your right. You may not wish to be addressed by the title, Richard, but it is yours. Whatever name you may wish to go by, you_ are _the true Lord Rahl.”_

 _“We’re more than the titles we’re given,” Richard said. “That’s why you’re here. You’re more than just another Mord-Sith, and you’re more than an extra pair of hands in battle. I don’t want you to stay with us just because you feel honour-bound to serve the Lord Rahl. I want you by my side because it’s where you want to be. You’re not a pet, Cara, and you’re not just a weapon, either. You’re an_ ally _.”_

_“Is there a difference?” she asked, quirking a mildly curious eyebrow._

_The way he looked at her made her feel physically sick. As though she should already know the answer. As though her question was idiotic, as though_ she _was an idiot for asking it. She hated looking like a fool; hadn’t she already been made to look foolish enough for one night?_

_“Of course,” he answered, blessedly without amusement. “There’s a big difference, Cara.”_

_She could tell by the way he was suddenly studying her that he wanted her to ask him what that difference was, hoping that she would entreat him to enlighten her and teach her how to be A Good Ally and A Good Person and the countless other supposedly Good Things that those chosen to travel with the Seeker needed to be if they were to survive._

_But she didn’t; he hadn’t ordered her to ask about it, nor had he ordered her to learn the difference, or to become those things that he wanted her to. Until he did, until the words left his lips as a command and not a subtle lifting at the corners of his lips, she had no intention of changing herself to suit his bizarre whims._

_She knew far more, she believed, about how to serve the Lord Rahl than he did; he hadn’t even known he_ was _the Lord Rahl until a few days ago, while she had been serving the house of Rahl her entire life. For all his Seeker’s insight, she was the one with the superior knowledge in this._

 _“Do I have my lord’s permission to sleep?” she asked instead, baring her teeth and quirking her brows to let him know that she was teasing (_ mostly _teasing, anyway), and he rolled his eyes in response._

_“Go on,” he sighed, just as melodramatic as she was._

_Nodding her appreciation, she retreated to the bedroll that one of her companions (Richard himself, she supposed) had made up for her while she’d been away cleaning her leathers. It was thoughtful, but unnecessary, and she made a mental note to tell him in no uncertain terms that such gestures weren’t required. It was discomfiting, the notion that Lord Rahl would do anything to make his chosen Mord-Sith more comfortable; the concept was too close to service for Cara’s tastes, and the thought of being served by the Lord Rahl, even in such an innocuous way as this, made her stomach turn._

_Between the heavy sounds of the wizard’s relentless snoring, and the unexplained tension that seizeed her and would not be banished however hard she tried, it took Cara far longer than she would have liked to fall asleep. She had all night to rest undisturbed, she knew (though she’d offered with great enthusiasm to stand watch a few times before, the Mother Confessor had told her quite pointedly that she wasn’t yet deemed trustworthy enough to be the only one in camp left awake), but that didn’t lessen her irritation at being so unable to silence her thoughts and fall asleep. It was a lack of discipline, and that was unforgivable._

_It was after perhaps two hours of restless tossing and turning that the ever-growing fatigue finally claimed her and she was at last able to surrender herself up to the blessed embrace of slumber._

_She dreamed of her sisters._

*

Kahlan knew that Cara was sleeping. Her eyes were as wide as they had been from the moment the spell had first taken effect, and there was no change to the milky film that covered them, but it was obvious by the way they rolled in her head and the way her eyelids fluttered helplessly that she was in the grip of sleep... and, not for the first time, the throes of a dream.

Much to Kahlan’s relief, Cara didn’t act out her dreams when she had them, but the Mother Confessor had come to recognise that Cara only showed the signs of sleep when her other self was dreaming; part of her wished she could see into the phantom visions, to see what kinds of dreams were so worth remembering across worlds, but the majority of her was exceptionally glad that she didn’t have to. Though every fibre of her being ached to know and understand her companion better, in every possible way, she knew enough about Cara to know that her innermost mind was a truly terrifying place. It was certainly no place for a Confessor to venture, especially not one who was struggling to deal with the confusion of her own newly-surfacing feelings.

As completely as Cara had changed in the year since she’d begun travelling with Richard and the others, Kahlan was constantly reminding herself of the fact that she was still a Mord-Sith at her core; her frozen heart had thawed somewhat to the concept of humanity, and the layers of her blackened soul had finally begun peeling away to reveal the first glimmering shades of vibrant colour, and both of those things gave Kahlan hope... but, deep in the places that not even Kahlan’s friendship could touch, there was a mind so shattered by a lifetime of pain and trauma that it would probably never be fully repaired.

Kahlan had experienced more than her share of disturbing dreams, and she knew how troubling the spectres of the subconscious could be; moments from her own childhood had revisited her on more than one dark night, leaving her gasping and clawing for breath as she awoke, fighting off the invisible ghost of her father as he bound her hands and ordered her to do his bidding. Those dreams had ended after she’d made peace with her past, coming face-to-face with the man who had so haunted her for so many years, but she still remembered them as if they were as close as her own clothes. She knew, far too intimately, the effects that dreams could have.

However unnerving her own dreams were, though, Kahlan could scarcely imagine the sorts of things a Mord-Sith like Cara must dream about. Her own traumas, she knew, were as nothing compared to what the Mord-Sith’s chosen ‘recruits’ were put through to become those soulless creatures who dealt in pain. Kahlan had awareness enough to know that, and the thought of what Cara must dream of on those few occasions that she dreamed at all (and it didn’t very happen often, she knew) was terrifying.

Cara mumbled something indistinct, and tried to roll over. Had she been lying down, the effort probably would have been successful, but sitting propped against the wall as she still was, the only effect it had was an odd sort of thrashing that lasted about two seconds before she settled back down. Kahlan, for her part, smiled at the movement, and tugged gently at Cara’s shoulders once they’d settled, until the Mord-Sith allowed herself (grudging even in unconsciousness) to be pulled down into her arms.

It was a gesture of comfort, she told herself with a certainty that didn’t quite match what she felt as she held the other woman with heart-stopping tightness. Everybody knew that being surrounded by familiar warmth was the best cure for bad dreams, her rational mind insisted; she was simply trying to offer Cara what little solace was hers to give from this side of the spell while she tossed and turned and wriggled her way through whatever bad dream was plaguing her. That, she told herself, was all it was.

Though she had offered Cara comfort many times since the spell had been cast, and though she knew that Cara would be as unresponsive as she always was (or, if she did respond, she would be so unconscious in doing so that she might as well have not responded at all), it felt different this time. Touching her at all felt different, less natural, and holding her felt all the more so.

She knew that Cara couldn’t possibly be aware of all the countless thoughts that now swam through her mind like shoals of fish through the depths of the ocean, but it still felt wrong. Forbidden, almost, like an abuse of trust. As if she were crossing a line simply by taking Cara into her arms and offering her comfort. As though everything between them had changed simply because her feelings had.

A soft whimper escaped Cara’s lips, silk-thin and just as delicate. Kahlan pulled her closer, banishing her unwanted thoughts with all the efficiency of a Confessor and forcing herself to focus not on how she was feeling, but on how Cara was.

“Shh,” she soothed. “It’s just a dream. You’re dreaming.”

Cara flinched and made a noise that was something in between a mumbled expletive and a whine; Kahlan couldn’t quite pinpoint the sound, or figure out what it was supposed to be, and, before she had the chance to try, it had evened out into a low buzzing hum.

“There,” Kahlan said, pressing her forehead gently against Cara’s. “See. You’re not afraid of a little dream, are you? You’re Cara. Aren’t you always telling us you’re not afraid of anything? Especially not a silly little dream. You’re Cara. You’re—”

*

_“—Cara!”_

_Being long accustomed to reacting the instant she heard her name, no matter what state she happened to be in at the time, Cara bolted from the bedroll and was standing to attention almost before her sleep-hazy mind was fully aware of the fact that it had been disturbed from its slumber at all. None of the minor dizziness made its way onto her features, of course, and for all the Seeker and his companions needed to know, she had been awake and alert the whole time. She was, after all, a solider, trained to be exactly that way._

_“Lord Rahl,” she mumbled, finding herself meeting the twin glares of Richard and Kahlan, and Zedd’s uncomfortably distracted gaze. Then, because Richard didn’t say anything further, she added, “By your command, my lord.”_

_“What...” Richard began, and Cara frowned in anticipation of yet another lecture on why he wasn’t the Lord Rahl and why she needed to stop calling him that. Instead, what he did say would have been more than enough to cause a lesser being than Cara to blush with not unsubstantial embarrassment. “What in the Creator’s name were you dreaming about?”_

_Cara, not being at all the type to allow something so pointlessly simple to embarrass her, merely offered a careless shrug. He had asked the question, she supposed; it was her duty to answer._

_“It was a very..._ pleasant _... dream,” she informed him soberly, and Kahlan shot her a near-lethal glare from where she stood._

_For his part, Richard blanched a deathly shade of pale._

_“That was a_ pleasant _dream?” he squeaked, looking rather like he was going to faint._

 _“Indeed,” she said, cocking her head with a smirk and ignoring the chains of wizard’s fire that the Mother Confessor was shooting with her eyes. “Very pleasant indeed. I could grace you with the details, if you so desire... my_ lord _.”_

_She knew with unwavering certainty just what would come next, and had already braced herself for the impact long before Kahlan recovered herself enough to pull back her arm (less than a second later, but still far too long to be effective). A wicked grin touched Cara’s lips as her head snapped back beneath the weight of the blow—_

_No, she realised with a renewed sense of smugness, not a blow at all. What the Mother Confessor, authority figure of all the Midlands, had in fact delivered was a_ slap _. And not even a particularly powerful one, either; it was the kind of open-palmed half-slap that children in school delivered when pulling each other’s hair became too mundane. The absurdity of it, and coming from the Mother Confessor of all people, caused her to choke on what was dangerously close to laughter._

_“Kahlan!” Richard shouted, and the sound of his voice raised in shocked anger at his beloved Confessor only made Cara grin ever wider as she righted herself._

_“She’s doing it on purpose!” Kahlan snapped, and the tone of her voice was a perfect companion to the infantile slap._

_“On the contrary,” Cara replied in her own defence, not allowing Richard a moment to speak on her behalf (as she knew he wanted to). “The Seeker asked me what I was dreaming about. I offered to tell him. Would you prefer I not answer the questions I’m asked in future?”_

_“What I’d_ prefer _,” Kahlan spat with real malice, “would be for you to go back to your_ sisters _.” Her eyes darkened with venom, and Cara steeled herself once again, even as the wizard placed a restraining hand on Kahlan’s shoulder. Kahlan smiled, cold and calculated. “Except they don’t want you either.”_

_The verbal barb struck far more forcefully than the slap, and it took Cara more effort than she’d ever admit to hold back the flinch that wanted to rip through her. Again, her mind swam with memories of Dahlia, her eyes and her lips and the parts of her that had haunted her dream, and Cara wanted nothing more than to turn around and leave Richard and Kahlan and Zedd to their quest. She’d walk all the Midlands twice over, if only she could find just one temple willing to welcome her back to their family._

_“You don’t know the first thing about my sisters,” she snarled when she’d composed herself, and hating that she sounded so affected. “And you would do well, Mother Confessor, not to speak of them again.”_

_“Kahlan,” Richard interjected, pointedly ignoring the fact that Cara could handle herself perfectly well without his so-called help, and the equally apparent fact that she’d had things perfectly under control without him. “This isn’t an easy transition for her. You know as well as anyone how hard this sort of thing is. Can’t you just show a little patience?”_

_“Richard,” the Mother Confessor replied, sounding positively aghast; Cara grinned again at that, but wisely held her tongue. “She’s a Mord-Sith. And she’s deliberately trying to antagonise all of us. How can you not see that? Are you really so blind to her faults?”_

_“My faults?” Cara echoed._

_“Your faults,” Kahlan repeated, hands on hips and eyes wild with fire and hate._

_“I’m not the one raising a hand against an_ ally _,” Cara shot back, addressing Richard and deliberately choosing the word he himself had used the previous night. “Nor am I the one demanding to know the details of my_ allies’ _private dreams. If I’ve stepped above my station, Richard, by all means discipline me accordingly... but know that I have done no more or less than what you asked of me. That’s all.”_

_“It’s fine, Cara,” Richard mumbled, sounding very much like he had the beginnings of a headache. “Just... can you just keep quiet from now on?”_

_Cara sighed wearily, forcing down the wave of soul-destroying emptiness that rose up in the back of her throat and threatened to choke her. “As you wish.”_

*

Maybe it was because she was so much more intimately acquainted with Cara now than she had been when they’d first begun travelling together, back when this conversation was supposed to have taken place... but, all of a sudden, Kahlan could see as clear as daylight every last breath of the pain that arced through Cara as she submitted to whatever she’d been told to do.

It was the most obvious thing she had ever seen in all her life, and Kahlan felt another flare of self-loathing as she wondered how in the Creator’s name her younger self had failed to notice it. Had she really been so consumed by hatred that she’d been unable to see what was right in front of her? Had Cara really been so expert in the not-so-subtle art of antagonism that she’d left Kahlan unable to see anything more or less than what she wanted to, the frigidity and the malice and the callousness that was Mord-Sith?

She knew the answer, and it soothed her wounded pride at least a little to know that it had been as much Cara’s doing as it had been her own. It was a behaviour she’d seen a thousand times in the other woman since then, and had slowly but surely come to recognise it for what it was – a defence mechanism that had been drilled into Cara’s very existence for so long that she could no longer live without it. Knowing it, for some reason, made the ache more profound, but at the same time eased some of the guilt.

Somewhere deep down inside the soulless Mord-Sith that Cara had become was a little girl. It was the much-denied part of Cara who had smiled at the thought that it might be snowing, the carefully-concealed corner of her that stared uncomfortably at the floor every time she inadvertently caught Kahlan and Richard sharing a moment of affection, the long-forgotten piece of her soul that could still remember (in spite of everything that had been done to her) a time when it was all right to be happy or frightened or lonely, or anything at all.

It was the Mord-Sith in Cara that lashed out whenever that small child dared to poke her head out, and Kahlan knew that she did it because she was afraid. Weakness was punishable by unimaginable torture, and the little girl in Cara had already been broken once. Cara was afraid – terrified, even, though she’d deny it – that, if anyone caught even the briefest glimpse of the child still within her, if anyone thought for a moment that the little girl hadn’t been completely destroyed a lifetime ago, she would be destroyed again, and again and again, until there truly was nothing left of her. If nobody ever saw the little girl, Cara too could pretend she didn’t exist.

That Cara, the one Kahlan found herself looking at now, the malicious and barb-tongued Cara who had used every trick at her disposal to make another Kahlan hate her even more than she already did... that Cara had every reason to still be afraid. She had lost everything that had ever meant anything to her, and was clinging desperately to the delusional belief that she was serving the true Lord Rahl, even as anyone within a hundred leagues could see the falsehood.

She was alone for the first time in her entire life, and she was scared beyond words. So, because it was all she knew how to do, she had pushed and shoved and clawed and punched at Richard and Zedd and (so much more than the two men combined) Kahlan, until they had finally turned their heads away to avoid the blows... and, by so doing, had completely missed the plaintive cries of that scared little girl who wanted nothing more than to be told she would be all right.

It was genius, really. And, as genius so often was, it was tragic.

The realisation had come to Kahlan some months later, far too late to go back and do anything about it, and certainly too late to apologise for arguments and cruel words that had long since been forgotten. But what had mattered, at least to her, was that it had come at all.

It hadn’t been Cara’s pride that had made her so unbearably abrasive in those first couple of weeks, just as it hadn’t been her stubbornness that had made her twist Kahlan’s arm until she’d lashed out. It hadn’t been any of the countless things Kahlan had found it so easy to assume, so easy to blame, and so easy to hate.

No. It had been her survival instinct. 

Cara had been frightened and lonely, lost and afraid, the closest to a child she’d been in a lifetime, working through the alien emotions of an alien situation as best she could, drowning in a never-ending ocean of unfamiliarity and unwanted feeling, lashing out because it was the only thing she knew how to do...

...and all Kahlan had seen was the colour of her leather.


	20. Chapter 20

When the moment came (as Kahlan had known it would) for Cara to confess her deeds at Valaria, to inform the other world’s Mother Confessor of exactly what had become of her sister, Kahlan was more than adequately prepared for the pain of hearing it.

What she wasn’t prepared for, however, was the near-genuine strain in Cara’s voice as she explained.

“It’s a waste of time,” she said, and Kahlan’s heart stopped beating as she recognised it.

As vague as the words themselves were, the conversation was one that had been branded upon her heart and her soul from the moment it had happened, and probably would remain there for the rest of both their lives.

She remembered the way she’d felt, the certainty (even before Cara had clarified) that the Mord-Sith knew so much more about what had happened to the other Confessors than she was willing to offer. She remembered the fear that had pooled in the pit of her stomach, remembered the way it had curled in on itself and chewed at her until it became worse than hate, remembered the roughness in her throat as she’d demanded that Cara elaborate. More than any of those things, though, she remembered holding herself in check with every ounce of self-control she had, and fighting (in the wake, as it had come, of a prophetic dream that had chilled her to her very soul) to keep from taking the damned Mord-Sith by the throat and confessing her right then and there.

“The Confessors living on Valaria are dead,” Cara continued, relentless, but with a depth of discomfort in her voice that Kahlan knew she couldn’t have possibly noticed at the time.

She was, Kahlan could tell, far from happy at having to explain the situation. To her credit, she seemed almost sincerely unhappy at having to inform the Mother Confessor that all her fellow Confessors were dead (and at her own hand, too), and Kahlan felt herself reeling right along with the other world’s Mother Confessor as she absorbed the news for the second time.

It never got easier. Even knowing, as she did, that that world’s Cara had been merciful, so much more so than her own, and that Dennee had not been made to suffer, she knew also that the softness of a blow seldom stopped the bruises from forming, and she knew just as well that the gentleness of the act wouldn’t be enough to keep her otherworldly counterpart from going into the Con Dar just as she herself had done. It was as inevitable as it was painful.

“When Darken Rahl found out there was a male Confessor living on Valaria,” Cara went on, “he ordered us to bring him the child.”

It was only through eyes healed and cleared by hindsight and experience that Kahlan was able to hear the ghost of a tremor in her tone, though the sound of it did little to keep her pulse from racing.

“...but, when we stormed the island, the mother sacrificed the baby so we couldn’t take it.”

In her mind’s eye, Kahlan could see herself desperately trying to keep the suffocating panic from overwhelming her completely, struggling with every ounce of strength she’d ever possessed to keep from giving Cara the satisfaction of seeing her in so much distress.

Even though she knew how it ended, even though she knew perfectly well that Dennee would return to the land of the living, that everything would be as close to all right as it was possible to be, it still hurt now just as deeply as it had hurt then, amplified by the memories of having watched that world’s Cara carry the deed out before her own eyes. It was pain beyond pain, and sorrow beyond sorrow, and yet, through it all, she saw the conflict in Cara’s spell-blinded eyes, and felt her remorse.

“She was eliminated.”

The announcement was far closer to an apology than Kahlan remembered it being, and she fervently wished she could know for sure whether it had been her own blind rage that had kept her from seeing it at the time, or whether it was because the other Cara truly had been softened by her experience where her own Cara had not. She would never know, of course, and that realisation saddened her almost more than the impact of hearing those fateful words again.

“There was no pain,” Cara said, so very softly. “I killed her swiftly.”

Kahlan didn’t need to believe it. She had seen it. She’d seen Cara whispering to a stoic Dennee (so ashamed of her own compassion) that she would make it quick; she’d seen the way Cara had trembled afterwards, and she knew the words to be true, just as she knew that her own Cara’s words (so different, so violent, and so explicit) had been likewise true. Her Cara had not been merciful, but this Cara had, and Kahlan honestly had no idea which of the two was the Cara she now found herself clinging to with everything she had.

Cara’s body, already stiff in her arms, suddenly went rigid with frightened unease.

The change, significant as it was, hadn’t been enough to prevent the inevitable. Kahlan had known it wouldn’t be, knew that it was only by her own intimate knowledge of just how much worse Dennee’s fate could have been that she was kept from joining her counterpart in the Con Dar. Though she was already holding onto Cara as though she were a lifeline, she nonetheless found herself tightening her grip even more, as if she could somehow reach into the spell and protect the woman from the blindness of her other self’s blood-rage.

Cara was twitching in her arms, and Kahlan didn’t need to be able to see the phantom Richard ordering her away to know it was happening, nor did she need any more reason to choke on the rejection in Cara’s eyes.

“I only did what I was ordered to,” Cara said, and it was almost a plea. A plea that would make no difference, Kahlan knew, but a plea nonetheless.

She was, in her twisted Mord-Sith way, begging to be allowed to stay. Her features, taut but resolute even in the face of the Con Dar, were etched with desperation and something that could almost be described as rejection. In that moment, she wasn’t a calloused Mord-Sith, remorseless and indifferent to the hurt she had caused; she was a woman (barely even a woman) terrified beyond words of being sent away by the only person in existence who had held his arms open when the only world she’d ever known had abandoned her.

She’d had nobody else, Kahlan realised, and, though she felt no guilt over the way she’d reacted to the news about Dennee (because, for all she saw in Cara now, she knew that she had been more than justified in feeling the hatred she’d felt, and wanting the vengeance she had come so close to getting), it hurt her now to look through those cursed-blessed hindsight-clear eyes and see the fear rippling across Cara face like stones cast into a pond.

How had they come back from this? Even now, Kahlan found her loyalties divided between the woman she cared for and the woman she had been, her mind and her heart unsure of whether she wanted to wrap her arms ever more tightly around Cara and whisper words of comfort-touched forgiveness into her unhearing ears, or to wrap her hands around her throat and demand to know why she couldn’t have ended Dennee’s life as swiftly and painlessly as her other self had. The confusion was overwhelming, threatening to tear her apart from two violently different directions, more and more with each passing moment until—

“—but I swore to serve you!”

Something in the words, or perhaps in the way Cara wasn’t even trying to conceal the fear anymore, struck Kahlan on such a primal level that it banished all other thoughts from her mind.

Dennee was alive now, insisted the corner of her mind that wanted to pull Cara ever closer and soothe away her fear of abandonment. It had all worked out, and even the hatred was a long-distant memory now (however much it felt closer than her own heartbeat just at that moment). What was going on in front of her was months past, almost a year in itself. It was history. Her feelings, those countless unexplainable things she felt for Cara in spite of what she’d seen her do to Dennee and in spite of this abhorrent resurfacing pain... those feelings, new and now and raw, were important. They were what mattered.

*

_Cara had no idea what had possessed her to return to Stowcroft. The irrepressible urge (so profound it could almost be described as a need) to find some shred of familiarity in_ something _had snuck up on her as she’d fled the Seeker’s camp, and had refused to be banished despite even her most disciplined efforts. It had devoured her, diving upon her and feasting on the scraps of her mind until she was helpless, pleading for mercy, promising to do anything it wanted if only it would silence itself for a few scattered moments._

_In its infinite wisdom, it had brought her home._

_She would blame that feeling, that inescapable and excruciating feeling, for the fact that she had spent three days locked in stocks. She would blame it for the pulsing ache in her neck and the dull throbbing in her skull where the stones had found their mark. She would blame it for the maniacal and insincere laughter that had rocked her weakened and hungry body as they had pulled her loose at the Mother Confessor’s command and thrown her into a prison cell that was nothing short of luxury after the stocks._

_At first, the sight of Mistress Nathair standing in the midst of the townspeople, as bold as the Confessor’s plunging neckline and every bit as daring, had startled her. It had been some years since she’d last seen her former mistress, and some time longer than that since she’d last seen her dressed in the respectable garb of a schoolteacher; she hadn’t known, though perhaps she should have, that the woman was still working in Stowcroft, serving the Mord-Sith in her own way by hand-selecting future recruits from her own classes, and the shock had jolted her far more than she would care to admit. To say nothing, of course, of how undeniably relieved she was to see her former mistress’s face, even if it hadn’t been in the comfort of a temple._

_The irony of her one-time trainer’s presence had not been lost on Cara, and neither had the fact that the soulless Mord-Sith in the peoples’ midst had been the only one in the entire town to show her the least hint of so-called ‘human compassion’. It was a paradox, and one that had left Cara simultaneously amused and strengthened. Somewhere in the world, however large and alien it was now that she faced it all alone, there were still sisters of the agiel who were willing to treat her as one of their own._

_Her mistress still cared about her._

_More than anything in the world, she longed for a moment alone with her former teacher, to allow herself the sweet indulgence of being embraced by cool leather-wrapped arms, muscles taut with familiar pain, to feel another’s agiel against her hip as their bodies met. She’d hoped that Mistress Nathair would take a moment to visit her in the prison cell, but she didn’t. It had disappointed her, though it hadn’t exactly been a surprise, and so she’d sufficed with the rather less enjoyable company of Richard, who had told her in no uncertain terms that he would get her out of this._

_In hindsight, she supposed she should have been gentler to him than she had been, but her pride was still wounded by his decision to send her away (and, moreover, it was blatantly obvious that he was only helping because he felt guilty for having been the one to drive her back here in the first place), and she could barely even meet his eye at all. He wanted her to embrace his presence, she knew, but it was beyond her power to feel anything but hurt._

_So far as Cara was concerned, death at the Mother Confessor’s hands would have been preferable to outright rejection from the Lord Rahl, even if he himself had denied the title, but he had not been merciful enough to grant her that deserved death. And why, she supposed, should he?_

_In the time since their party had been joined by the obnoxious youth named Flynn, she had taken to calling him ‘Richard’, though it was certainly not in deference to his claims that he was no Rahl. More, it was simply because it kept the idiot Flynn from making obnoxious comments about the title, mocking it in such a way that – had he not been imbued with a very important rune – would have earned him a shallow grave. She called him ‘Richard’ because it was practical, and because Flynn was an annoyance, and she made it clear that those were the only reasons. For all her loyalty to him, were it not for the infantile young tag-along, she would not have even granted him that. And he knew it every bit as well as she did._

_He had shown her kindness, the only kindness she’d ever been shown by anyone except her mistress... and she had thrown it back in his face with worse than no gratitude. Sending her away was, she supposed (though it still cut deep) a fitting punishment._

_Part of her, the part that ached to serve him again simply so she could once more have someone to pledge herself to (as a Mord-Sith, she was purposeless without a master to serve; alone, she was less than nothing), longed with all its heart to supplicate itself before him. That part of her wanted to thank him, to beg his forgiveness for what had been done on Valaria, for calling him Lord Rahl, for everything she had ever done to dissatisfy him. It wanted to offer her services even to the Mother Confessor if it would mean she’d let her rejoin them; it would have done anything for Richard, because it needed somebody to serve and she was bound by blood and honour to him._

_But the rest of her was stubborn, and it insisted that she would sooner die making her mistress proud than live in worship of a Lord Rahl who had so thoroughly abandoned her._

_When her mistress stepped up in the middle of the trial to speak in her defence, Cara almost collapsed. Richard had been pushing her, harder and harder with every breath each of them took, driving her towards the answers that he wanted to hear, whether or not they were in fact true. She, in turn, had been on the brink of dissolving beneath the sheer weight of it all – the force of pressure Richard was driving into her, her own feelings, the misguided loyalty she still felt to her sisters despite her best efforts to cast them aside as they had done to her, her honest pride at being Mord-Sith coupled with the twisted need to do as the Lord Rahl commanded in spite of his rejection. It had all been too much, and all the more so after days in the stocks while awaiting the Mother Confessor’s arrival, and the intervention of Mistress Nathair had come at exactly the right moment to keep her from saying or doing something that everyone in the room would have regretted._

_There was not another soul in the room who could fully appreciate the absurdity of a Mord-Sith clad in the garb of a schoolteacher and speaking about the merits of pity over punishment, and Cara considered herself deeply privileged to be in a position of such unique amusement. Once again, it gave her strength, empowered her, reminded her that she wasn’t alone (however hard the world seemed to be trying to make her feel that way). As the woman spoke in her defence, Cara remembered the way she’d felt when her mistress had embraced her for the first time, as Cara’s own father lay dead at her feet and by her own hand, and felt some long-forgotten part of her swelling up with pride._

_Mistress Nathair had talked often about the Mord-Sith as her true family; as a child, before she’d been truly broken, Cara had had some trouble understanding the concept. She had missed her mother and her father and her sister and those of her friends she hadn’t forgotten the names of. All the things she’d associated with ‘family’ were alien among these women, the women that Mistress Nathair insisted were everything to her._

_And then her mistress had blessed her with Dahlia, had given her exactly the kind of family she’d been missing. She had provided Cara with someone to love and care for and protect, and Cara had understood. The Mord-Sith_ were _family. They understood all the darkness of the world, and they protected each other from it. Just as she had protected Dahlia for so much of her life, just as Dahlia had done for her in return... and just as her generous mistress had done for them both. That was family. No more and no less._

_Of course, Kahlan Amnell wasn’t convinced by the schoolteacher’s story; when she called another recess, Cara knew exactly what was going to happen. She knew precisely what that damned woman was telling Richard behind the safety of their closed doors, and she had never hated the Mother Confessor more than she did in that moment._

_Mistress Nathair was her teacher, every bit as much a part of her family as Zedd or Richard were part of Kahlan’s. It was pure vengeful spite, she knew, that had caused the Mother Confessor to call out Mistress Nathair for what she was, and she hated her for it even as she acknowledged that she herself would have done the very same in her place. She knew the need for vengeance well, knew it as a second heartbeat, and she knew intimately the fires of spite blazing within the Mother Confessor’s heart._

_She certainly couldn’t blame Kahlan for it, that primal desire to punish the last living soul who loved Cara for who and what she was, who loved all of her. She couldn’t blame her, but she could certainly hate her all the more for it._

_And yet, when Richard stood before her, ordering her as the Lord Rahl that she was still bound to serve and obey, commanding her to tell her the truth of what Mistress Nathair had meant to her... despite all that seething hatred, she couldn’t control the itching thrall of obedience that skittered like crawling bungs beneath her skin despite her best efforts to remember that he’d rejected her._

_She heard her own voice ring out, as if from across a great distance, in subservient answer to the one question she knew both she and her mistress had prayed would never be asked; she felt herself surrendering to the inescapable truth of it, bowed herself in body and mind to the command of the Lord Rahl. She admitted it, all of it, everything..._

_...and she knew that she was lost._

*

“She told you,” Cara said, sounding every bit like the schoolgirl she had once been. “She was my teacher.”

Kahlan grimaced. She knew what exactly was coming next, remembered every detail with a sureness that she knew wouldn’t leave until her dying breath. Her Cara had been less hesitant than this one, she recalled, had turned on her former instructor almost instantly, glad of the opportunity to sell out one of the sisters who had so readily done the same to her. This Cara, the one who sat before her now, seemed quieter, more subdued, and it pained Kahlan far more than she would admit to see her so reduced, so unwilling to betray her one-time kin.

Less than a moment, and Cara flinched as though she’d been struck, buckling beneath the weight of Richard’s order. Closing her eyes, Kahlan willed herself not to follow her companion over the edge of despair; she would be of no use to either of them if she let herself be consumed by this as well.

“I _am_ telling you the truth,” Cara insisted, voice shaking right along with her body. “She taught me.” Her breath caught in her throat, and Kahlan willed the Richard of that world to show some mercy and let the matter drop. “ _Everything_.”

The words poured from her like a waterfall after that, though not at all like the way Kahlan remembered them spilling from within her own Cara. Details, vivid and stark, of how she had first discovered that her Mord-Sith torturer was in fact her schoolteacher, and the raw affection for the woman (dripping like tainted honey from her each word) cut through Kahlan like few things she had ever seen.

That affection, beyond all doubt, was new. For all of the apparent positive changes in this world’s Cara, Kahlan distinctly recalled that her own had been far more ready to turn herself against her former instructor, to treat the woman with all the bitterness she’d no doubt felt towards all of her ex-sisters in the wake of what they’d done to her. This Cara was so much sadder, so much more forgiving of her sisters’ sins; it broke Kahlan’s heart to know that, twice over, they would not be so forgiving of hers.

By the time Cara had finished her exposition, that syrup-rich affection still threaded through the pain in her voice, Kahlan was feeling genuinely nauseous.

Apparently, not all the differences between this Cara and that one were positive. Apparently, and the thought made some deeply-hidden part of Kahlan’s heart leap with empathic suffrage, this schoolteacher had done enough in bringing the never-mentioned Dahlia into Cara’s life – had branded upon her such a profound notion of familial love – that even the undeniable betrayal embarked upon by Triana and the others of Cara’s own temple hadn’t been enough to sway her devotion to those of her sisters she did care for. Or, at the very least, those still dutiful enough to speak up in her defence.

For all her newly-discovered softness, it seemed that that world’s Cara (in loyalty, at least) had been far more of a Mord-Sith, right through to her burning blood, than Kahlan’s Cara had ever been.

Despite those differences, though, Kahlan knew what would happen next; moving reflexively, she held Cara tight as the other woman twitched and flinched in reaction to a scene that Kahlan remembered as clearly as daylight. The townspeople turning on the schoolteacher, their elders insisting on a double confession, Kahlan’s own conflict at having to reconcile what she’d learned about Cara with the truer monster they had uncovered in the schoolteacher and her countless crimes, the defeated agony that had touched Richard’s eyes as he watched, powerless to quell the tide of carnage he had caused. All of it, and more, flashed before her mind’s eye like some kind of magical recording, and she couldn’t stop herself seeing it any more than she could keep Cara from going through it.

What would happen next, she knew with the inescapable certainty of having experienced it once before already, would break them both.

*

_Cara had known before anyone had even needed to utter a word that the trial would end in confession. She had known it long before the Mother Confessor had arrived, almost before the townspeople had called for her; for all the Seeker’s best intentions, even his efforts to speak on her behalf had never stood a chance of effecting change. Not when it came to this. It was as inevitable as the setting sun, as certain as the rising tide, and as obvious as the Mother Confessor’s bloodlust. Richard Cypher was a fool if he believed otherwise._

_Though she was prepared for the act itself, or so she’d told herself, Cara was not prepared at all for the words that spilled from her former mistress’s lips in an unstoppable wave in the instant she was confessed._

_At first, as she began whimpering her halted entreaties for the Seeker and his Confessor to hear the truth, all Cara could think of was how unfair a death confession was for her one-time mistress, her mother and her sister and everything else. No Mord-Sith, not even Triana, deserved this fate. A final few minutes of choking life, spent in humiliating supplication to a woman that she had been trained her entire life to believe was the worst thing in all the world. There was no excuse for a death like that, and the cruelty of it lashed at Cara’s back as she stared straight ahead and tried to block out the sound of Mistress Nathair’s halting pleas._

_She could not watch her former teacher suffer in the throes of this, the ultimate humiliation. She couldn’t hear those words, see the coiling vines of agony tearing at her, and worse, the twisted love of confession. She could not watch it, not with Kahlan Amnell standing before her, hand steady as she reached now for Cara’s throat. She could not watch her one-time mistress die the death of a Confessor’s touch, knowing that she was looking into the eyes of her own fate._

_But then the nature of Mistress Nathair’s words changed, shifting from meaningless confession-induced apologies – the kind that that everyone in the room knew held no water – to something much more sinister._

_“The Seeker was right...” she forced out through her pain, and Cara’s already-pounding heart began to beat harder._

_She wanted to lean forwards, to cover her mistress’s mouth with both of her hands to stem the flow of these humiliating words, even though her hands were bound behind her back. She wanted to demand that her mistress show some shred of her former self even in the cold embrace of confession, to die with dignity and honour as was fitting of her station. Not like this, overpowered by the desperate desire to please these people who had done nothing but hate her for doing her duty. Not her mistress._

_She wanted to end the barrage of words before it could start, because she did not want the woman who had granted her a family to die as a traitor to those who still thought of her as theirs. She didn’t want Kahlan Amnell to take from her the closest thing to a mother she’d had for the vast majority of her childhood, replacing that woman with a simpering coward unworthy to be called Mord-Sith, simply because she had used her Confessor’s powers to steal away the woman’s ability to think for herself._

_But Mistress Nathair would not be silenced, least of all by the tumultuous whirlpool of thoughts screaming through Cara’s head._

_“...we forced Cara to believe a lie,” she went on, and Cara fought to drown out the words in the roaring of blood in her ears._

__This _was the lie, she knew. Not that. These words, borne of confession and pain and forced love, they were the lies. The truth – the only truth that mattered – was the story she had lived through. These hollow words were meaningless. They were empty and pointless and they were not real._

_“The hearing is over,” an indignant cry rang out from the crowd, as demanding as it was impatient. “Confess her!”_

_“No!” Mistress Nathair shouted, her voice roaring over the outburst. “You don’t understand! I must tell the truth!”_

_The crowd exploded at that, shouts and commands for confession turning the stale air different shades of rage until it was all that Cara could hear. She was no stranger to people baying for her blood, at least not in as long as she could remember, but with death hanging over her shoulder, so close that she could practically taste it (which, with the Confessor still within touching distance, she truly could), its effects were doubled and dizzying._

_“Let her speak!” Richard shouted, silencing the crowd, and Cara didn’t know whether to thank or hate him for the reprieve._

_Even before a single word had left her former mistress’s lips, Cara knew she didn’t want to hear it. She knew it, with a certainty that she couldn’t understand and didn’t want to, knew it because the steely resolve that had been surging through her, the heated determination not to let the Mother Confessor see her crack, was now turning to ice water in her veins, and there was nothing she could do but hold her head up and pray she could breathe through the frozen pain for just as long as it took Kahlan to do the job._

_And then Mistress Nathair spoke, and all Cara could think was that confession couldn’t possibly hurt as much as this._

*

Watching the reactions flickering across Cara’s features as she relived the moment when her entire life had changed was a breed of torture all in itself. Kahlan had thought she was used to seeing the nuances in Cara as she reacted and responded to things she herself couldn’t see; she’d grown accustomed to the strange facial tics and muttered remarks aimed at people or things that only existed in the Mord-Sith’s head, but this was different.

This time, though she couldn’t hear the words, Kahlan knew what they were. She had been through them, and she remembered them. She knew exactly what Cara was reacting to, knew exactly the depth of pain and regret and remorse that was powering into her, and, more than any of those things, she knew exactly why.

“Richard was right,” she heard herself murmuring, and she had no idea whether she was speaking about the Richard at the time (the Richard who had insisted that there was more to Cara than the brutal Mord-Sith whose life was death and torture), or her own Richard (the one who’d told her how she felt, who had known it even before she did). Perhaps it was both of them, she mused wryly; they were just as right as each other.

The observation, whichever Richard they were referring to, meant little to Cara, whose only response was to begin trembling, her eyes (even spell-blind as they were) just starting to brim with tears. And not just tears, but the kind tears borne of such uncontrollable emotion that even a lifetime of Mord-Sith training couldn’t hold them at bay. The sight of her in such irrepressible turmoil sent a wave of blistering agony straight to Kahlan’s soul, leaving her an exposed nerve.

It wasn’t Cara in her arms, just as it hadn’t been Cara standing before her on that platform as Kahlan had prepared herself to confess her. There was no Mord-Sith here, only that small, helpless, frightened little girl – the one that Cara fought with every last fibre of her being to deny had ever existed. Tt was the nine-year-old who knew nothing of slaughter or how to inflict pain or any of the countless things she would later learn, who knew only that she was frightened and lonely and didn’t want to be left alone with the rats.

It was almost impossible to define what Kahlan felt in that moment, as she pressed her lips to Cara’s cheek and held her through the shudders that racked both their bodies. It wasn’t sympathy and it wasn’t sorrow; it wasn’t pity but it wasn’t quite pain. There was love, but it wasn’t anything like the love she felt for Richard, or the love he was so sure defined her feelings for Cara as well. It was intense, and more than a little frightening, and there was nothing she could do in the face of it except hold on tightly as the rawness of the moment ripped through them both.

Cara didn’t make a sound as she pressed her face against Kahlan’s neck, and Kahlan returned her silence in kind; it was a moment that stretched on forever, even as Kahlan heard echoing in her mind (as vividly as if she were right there in the room all over again) the schoolteacher’s explanation, rolling on and on and on until she was sure it would shatter the woman herself and her broken pupil.

She longed to protect Cara from that, even as she knew that she needed to hear it, needed it more even than she needed the air she seemed so unable to draw in. It was vital, she knew, that Cara realise just how completely her sisters had manipulated her; she needed to learn this, however painful it was, so that she could move on from the dark world that had been all she’d known for so many years. It was so very important, Kahlan knew, but it still hurt, cutting her every bit as deeply as it lashed at Cara, and she felt her own body starting to shake right along with the Mord-Sith’s as they both fought back the tide of tears.

Finally, just when she thought she couldn’t take any more of the weighted emotion and empathic grief, Kahlan felt the determined shift in Cara’s stance, felt her go rigid even as she started shaking harder, and knew what was coming.

“Confess me,” Cara pleaded, breathing hard.

“No,” Kahlan heard herself whisper, clinging to her for dear life.

Cara raised her head, features twisted with pain. “I deserve it.”

*

_Cara had never been afraid of death, but she’d never been particularly enamoured with the idea, either. As far as she’d ever thought about it (which wasn’t particularly often, if she could help it), death was simply a purposeless inevitability; if she was lucky, she would die on the battlefield, and with honour. If she was unlucky, she would die old and sick and weak in a bed, helpless and pathetic. However it happened, the end result would be the same._

_Death was just something that happened._

_Now, as she felt the Mother Confessor’s hand close around her throat and knew that the moment was imminent, as she saw the hardened resolve on Kahlan’s face and knew that she was about to die (slowly, in the grip of agony, and certainly without any honour to speak of), as she felt the Underworld calling to her from beyond the tatteered veil... suddenly, she wanted more desperately than anything she’d ever wanted anything in her life to be allowed the embrace of death._

_It wasn’t that they’d tried to break her father, and it certainly wasn’t that they’d tortured him to do it; neither of those things were the least bit surprising. Cara had learned and accepted many years ago the necessity of breaking the parents of those fortunate enough to be chosen by the Mord-Sith; she had broken a countless number of such cowardly fools herself, in fact, and always took great enjoyment in watching them fall to pieces before her eyes._

_Their daughters, those girls who waited and suffered and slowly came to learn just how precious a gift the Mord-Sith were offering them... they deserved better than these pathetic worms who dared to call themselves ‘family’ as if they had any idea of what it meant. They deserved the Mord-Sith, and it gave Cara more pride than almost any other part of her duty to see, time and again, those girls’ pathetic parents crack and break under the weight of the agiel and the expertise of those who wielded it. To see them finally surrender to their fate, to accept their punishment and know that they deserved it._

_But her father hadn’t broken. Despite weeks of torture (and Cara knew now, in a way that she hadn’t been able to fully grasp back then, exactly what that entailed), he had not broken._

_Knowing her sisters as she did, she supposed it shouldn’t have surprised her. It shouldn’t have surprised her and it definitely shouldn’t have bothered her. She was everything she was thanks to the Mord-Sith, her true family, the women who had taken her in and loved her as one of them, who had taught her and trained her and shaped her into the warrior she was. She was powerful beyond measure, and it was all because of the efforts of the woman who had breathed her last breath just moments earlier. It shouldn’t have mattered that a small lie had been necessary to make all those things happen; hadn’t she herself facilitated dozens of similar such lies to unsuspecting girls, for the greater good?_

_This was different, though. This was her father. This was everything she had believed all her life, all the hate she’d felt towards him, shaped as it had been into all the love she felt for her sisters. This was the rawest essence of the family that the Mord-Sith had been to her throughout her time with them. And it was the heart and soul of those endless pain-filled nights she had shared with Dahlia when they were young girls, Cara reminding Dahlia (still too afraid to even pick up an agiel, much less wield one) again and again and again that they would be each other’s family forever._

_For as long as she could remember, Cara had been led to believe that the Mord-Sith were the only ones in the world who cared for her, the only family that truly loved her. When the Seeker had sent her away and she’d returned to the place of her birth, she had found herself more genuinely delighted to see her former mistress than her own blood sister, and she remembered with sickening clarity how her heart had soared at the sight of Mistress Nathair standing before her, speaking in her defence, accepting judgment because she had stood up to support her former pupil. Mistress Nathair had been her sister, her mother, her teacher. Grace, for all her good intentions, had never been anything more than flesh and blood. She had, when it all came down, been less than nothing._

_Suddenly, everything was different. The world was a different place. Family was different._

_Cara tried to think of her Mord-Sith sisters, tried to remember the bond she’d shared with them – with Mistress Nathair, who had always been so very proud of her... with Dahlia, who had always given her everything she’d needed, who had seen the very depths of Cara, just as Cara had seen the depths of her. Mistress Nathair, who was her mother, Dahlia who was her sister. Triana, who had been her equal, in every way except the one that mattered. They had been all the family she’d ever known, the only family she loved, and the only family that loved her._

_So why, suddenly was she unable to remember how it had felt when her mistress had embraced her for the first time? Why was it suddenly so impossible to recall anything in Dahlia other than the innocent little girl she herself had played a part in destroying? Why couldn’t she think of Triana without seeing the bitterness in her eyes as she and her mindless followers delivered blow after blow to any part of Cara they could reach?_

_Why, more than any of those things, could suddenly she see nothing at all, except the vengeance-hazed eyes of the Mother Confessor?_

_Suddenly, it wasn’t just about her father anymore. It wasn’t about the man she’d killed in his own blood, and it wasn’t about how weak or stupid or gullible she must have been to believe the lies her mistress had poured into her like so much water. It wasn’t about the screams he hadn’t been able to release as she’d driven the agiel into his chest and watched him die. It wasn’t about the irrepressible relief she’d felt as she watched him thrash and twitch his last, or about the warmth and love that had radiated from her new sisters as they’d pulled her into their arms._

_It was about family._

_Her father, her mother, both dead because of her. Her sister, who had spent a lifetime grieving for their blood shed by the Mord-Sith. The Mother Confessor, drowning in the depthless dark waves of the Con Dar, in mourning for her own sister and the nephew she would never know. Dahlia, banished to the middle of nowhere in punishment for a failure that hadn’t even been hers in the first place. Triana, dead for a betrayal that should never have been allowed to happen at all._

_So many. So many people, so many families. So much blood, and all of it on her hands. So many tears, and all of them Cara’s fault._

_There was no family for her here. Not in the town that had once been her home, not among the Seeker’s people, not beside her so-called sisters of the agiel. She had torn so many families asunder, it seemed only fair that there would not be enough scraps of one left to call her own. Perhaps she would find one in the arms of the Keeper, when the Mother Confessor sent her to the Underworld._

_It wasn’t a fair punishment. She deserved so much worse than confession, so much more than the harshest death possible. So much more than to know that the last thing she’d ever see would be the pain-etched eyes of the Mother Confessor, that the last thing she would ever know was that this woman – her new mistress – was alone in the world because of her._

_It was not fair, and it was not just. Because she, Cara, would be allowed the respite of death, the bliss of the Underworld’s flames... while the Mother Confessor and those like here would be forced to endure, to survive, and to live the rest of her life with that burden of grief weighing so heavily upon her shoulders. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. She should not be allowed to escape into the Keeper’s embrace while those who were suffering because of her were forced to live on in agony._

_She didn’t realise how close the tears were to the surface until they spilled over, and was only dimly aware of the rush of warm air as the Mother Confessor’s icy hand dropped from her throat as though they’d both caught fire._

_What came next didn’t matter. Not to Cara. And, she guessed, not to Kahlan either._

_Kahlan Amnell could preach all she wanted about remorse and the little girl whose life had been taken from her by the Mord-Sith, but Cara knew the truth. She had thought it, had wished for the cruelty of it instead of the relative haven of death... and she knew that Kahlan had seen it in her eyes, in her tears, in that eternal moment before the deed had been carried out._

_The Mother Confessor wasn’t sparing her from death. She was condemning her to life._


	21. Chapter 21

It was a long time before the haunted pain eased its way out of Cara’s features, and longer still before the spine-wracking shivers finally stopped wracking her body, but Kahlan was scarcely aware of the passing time. Her arms ached from the strain of holding onto the other woman so tightly, but it was more than she could do to let go, and she realised with some surprise that, as much strength as she was trying to offer Cara by clinging to her so desperately, she was drawing just as much from it herself.

She supposed that, in some corner of her mind, she must have known (even back then) how difficult the trial had been for Cara; she must have realised the weight bearing down on her companion’s tainted soul, but at the time she’d been so caught up within her own suffering, her hatred of the woman who had done such unspeakable things to Dennee, and the near-blinding thirst for vengeance that (despite her insistences to the contrary whenever Richard brought it up) had all but consumed her, that she hadn’t been able to see situation for what it was. She’d never told Richard just how right he had been, and she knew he’d never dream of asking her to, but that didn’t make it less of a fact, and it certainly didn’t keep either of them from knowing that it was true.

Loosening her grip on the Mord-Sith ever so slightly as her shudders subsided, Kahlan tried to picture a life without her. A year – more than a year – without Cara’s (often overwhelming, but never dull) presence in their little group. All that time without her obnoxious remarks or her cocksure arrogance, or her self-proclaimed superiority. A year without ever knowing what had happened to Dennee, and an existence where her beloved sister had never been brought back to life. It was unfathomable, and more than a little bit frightening.

But then, hadn’t Zedd mentioned a world without Cara? Hadn’t he claimed to have conjured a world where she’d never been taken by the Mord-Sith, never been broken, never joined the Seeker’s quest? He hadn’t graced them with any details, though Kahlan knew he would be more than willing to do so if she’d found a moment to ask him (Zedd could never turn down the opportunity to spin a good story), but it had sounded beautiful. Almost perfect. The world at peace, herself and Richard bound together in matrimony, all the world in balance.

And yet, Kahlan suddenly couldn’t bring herself to picture it with the giddy joy she’d felt surface in her when Zedd had first mentioned it, back when her thoughts had been only of Richard. Now, even with him in her thoughts, and her love for him, and the knowledge that such happiness was a real possibility for them here as well as there... still, she found that she couldn’t imagine true joy, even in that blissful world, if her life was void of Cara.

In her arms, Cara relaxed, just enough to let Kahlan know that her mind was finally cleared of the troubled thoughts that had plagued it, at least for the time being. Kahlan, half-smiling with the flood of relief that surged through her, felt her own body slacken a little in response.

There had been so much tension rending both of them for so long – almost from the moment the spell had been cast, and for more reasons than Kahlan could count by now – that it never failed to make her smile when they were granted even the briefest respite from it. The flickering ghost of real calm in Cara’s expression, the subtle shift of her body, the air-soft sigh borne of something that wasn’t suffering... all of a sudden, to Kahlan, they were the most beautiful things in all the world.

“When this is over,” she breathed against the shell of Cara’s ear, “I’m never letting you out of my sight again.”

In her arms, her face buried warm and safe in the crook of Kahlan’s neck, Cara smiled.

*

_In the weeks that followed her so-called salvation at Stowcroft and her return to the Seeker’s side, Cara found herself waking up every night, almost without exception, drenched in sweat. Usually hot and feverish, fired by lust and hunger, sometimes cold and sickly, the grip of something dangerously close to fear... but always there, undeniable and infuriatingly inescapable, soaking through the increasingly tight fabric of her leathers. It made her uncomfortable, and that in turn made her irritable._

_The pain and guilt and shame still clung to her, even weeks later, and all the more so with every glance she stole at the Mother Confessor. It was enough to banish what brief remaining affection for her former sisters had lingered in her heart, at least on the surface; she was grateful for the sudden lack of sentiment she felt when she thought of them (which was often), but even that, it seemed, wasn’t quite enough to keep them from haunting her dreams._

_The dreams themselves varied from night to night. In some, she’d be hanging above the blood pit, mouth open in a silent scream as her mistresses beat her into submission, either in punishment for her own misdeeds or simply for the pleasure of those who stood in darkened corners and watched with snakelike smiles. In others, she’d be braced against the wall, every inch of her alight with primal need as she pushed Dahlia to her knees and allowed her the honour of taking her. In still others, she’d be sprawled on that damned forest floor, fighting the claws of unconsciousness as Triana cut the braid from her head and left her to die._

_All so different, and yet their effects on waking remained unnervingly similar._

_Richard didn’t notice her discomfort when she awoke, or the way her leathers were clinging with ever-increasing stickiness to her heat-pricked skin. Of course, she supposed, if he_ had _noticed, Kahlan would probably have removed his manhood before he had a chance to react to what he’d seen; truthfully, Cara rather doubted that even that would have stopped him staring, if only he’d just possessed the smallest hint of observational skill, but it would have been an amusing sight nonetheless._

_The wizard, naturally, was far more perceptive than any of his companions gave him credit for, and not only knew of her ailment, but knew just as well the cause of it too. He could have offered her an unction to clear her mind of such distracting dreams, she knew, or else cast any one of a thousand spells, but, of course, he didn’t. It was possible, though Cara doubted it, that he simply didn’t want to impose himself on her without invitation; more likely, she couldn’t help thinking with no small amount of bitterness, he was simply so vindictive that he wanted her to come to him and beg for relief._

_As to Kahlan... well, if the self-satisfied smirk that touched her face on certain mornings was any yardstick to measure by, she not only knew as well as Zedd did what was troubling Cara, but took great enjoyment in watching the Mord-Sith shift and squirm uncomfortably when she awoke pricked by the lingering effects._

_It didn’t help either of them, or the tension that continued to flow like wizard’s fire between them, that the almost predatory delight in the Mother Confessor’s eyes as she watched Cara struggle to slow her breathing in the wake of a particularly vivid dream was one of the most intoxicatingly erotic things Cara had ever seen in her life. She had never thought of Confessors as sexual beings before, fixated as she had always been on their ability to bring death and humiliation on any Mord-Sith within five hundred leagues, and perhaps she could blame the lingering revenants of the dream for making her think of it so unexpectedly now... but there was no denying it once she’d noticed._

_The way Kahlan’s eyes smouldered as they locked on her hips, the teasing way her lips lifted not quite enough as she realised the cause of her companion’s discomfiture, the delicious self-satisfaction as she watched Cara struggle to move without igniting the heat within. All of it. The dream’s effects would linger throughout the day, Cara thought with a grimace, thanks to Kahlan Amnell and her_ staring _._

_Mord-Sith were unaccustomed to patience at the best of times, and Cara was even less given to it than most. She did not enjoy waiting for anything, and especially for satisfaction. Dahlia, she supposed, had been a decadent indulgence in that regard; sharing quarters as they had done for much of their adult lives meant that Cara seldom had to wait more than a handful of minutes, if even that, to see herself satisfied in the wake of such dreams as those that haunted her so frequently all of a sudden._

_Now, pledged as she was to the Seeker and his friends, it was going to be a lifetime of this. A lifetime of chastity and frustration, of bottling up those urges and impulses (for sex and for violence and for both at the same time), and a lifetime of feeling those things exacerbated, both deliberately and accidentally, by the Mother Confessor and the crackling heat of her gazes. It was not something to look forward to._

_“Cara.”_

_A low groan caught in Cara’s throat. It was barely half an hour into the morning. She did not need this._

_“Yes, Kahlan?”_

_Kahlan smiled, a thin-lipped grin laced with danger and malicious glee and coated with the saccharine sugar of insincere worry._

_“Are you feeling well?” she asked._

_She sounded every inch the concerned companion, but everyone within a thousand leagues would know that wasn’t the case at all. She was_ enjoying _this, Cara knew, and the fact only fired her blood even more than it already was. Of course Kahlan would choose the morning after her most vividly detailed dream to date. Of course she would pick a morning where bloodlust and arousal coupled and sang within her blood until she could barely see through the red-hot haze of it._

 _“I’m fine,” she replied tightly. “Thank you for your_ concern _.”_

_“Are you sure?” Kahlan pressed cheerfully. “You seem a little... uncomfortable.”_

_“I’m_ fine _,” Cara snarled, closing her eyes and swallowing the sudden overpowering urge to slam the Mother Confessor against the nearest tree and either take her or beat her (or, ideally, both). “It’s simply unpleasantly warm this morning. That’s all.”_

_The knowing smirk on Kahlan’s face was physically painful. “I see.”_

_Much to Cara’s indescribable relief (because she would not have been held responsible for her actions if Kahlan continued to look at her like that), Richard chose that moment to interrupt her less-than-pure thoughts with an irritatingly optimistic announcement about the behaviour of his newly-acquired compass._

_“It’s holding steady at north-northeast,” he observed._

_Cara, for her part, couldn’t possibly have cared less._

_Meandering in front of her, Zedd brightened. “That should bring us within a league of Winterhaven by noon,” he said, every inch the picture of casual innocence, though there was not one of his travelling companions who didn’t know better than to believe that. “We could stop there for a hot meal...”_

_Had she been in a more amicable mindset, Cara might have let his remark pass. As it was, she was moody, irritable, aroused to the point of pain, and itching for a fight; thus, she had no intention whatsoever of wasting the opportunity to turn the Confessor’s attention towards someone other than herself for five seconds._

_“I thought the compass was supposed to point the way to the Stone of Tears,” she observed acidly. “Not the nearest tavern.”_

_Zedd huffed in indignation. “To reach the Stone of Tears,” he pointed out with what Cara was sure he thought was reason, “we need all the sustenance we can get.”_

_That was when Richard noticed the fruit._

*

Cara’s discomfort was just as apparent to Kahlan as it was to her otherworld counterpart, though her reaction was drastically different.

She could feel the way Cara shifted in her arms, grumbling indecipherable half-words to herself as though it was the universe’s fault that she couldn’t get comfortable, and she could see the telltale beads of sweat forming on her brow. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what the cause of Cara’s restlessness was, and flaming heat rushed to colour Kahlan’s cheeks as her mind chose that moment to lambaste her with too-vivid suggestions of all the ways she might be able to ease her friend of that particular burden.

To her credit, Cara was diligent beyond words in keeping herself restrained; Kahlan remembered how desperately she had struggled to keep her primal Mord-Sith impulses under control that second night after they’d discovered what Zedd had done to the world, and recalled well the strain in Cara’s eyes as she’d told Kahlan that, for all the Mother Confessor’s best intentions, she could not provide what Cara needed. It had unnerved, almost frightened Kahlan at the time... but now, all of a sudden, she would give anything to be able to ease that particular ache.

“Water?”

Kahlan blinked. The word had come out of nowhere, and it took a long moment to place it in the mental timeline she’d set up of their travels together; when she did, the puzzled expression that had painted its way across her features gave way to a small chuckle. Zedd. Of course.

The wizard was, of course, high-maintenance even at the best of times, but, deprived as he had been for a brief time (courtesy of the witch Shota) of his memories and the wisdom of his experience, he had been more so than ever before. More so, certainly, than his companions – accustomed as they were, or so they’d thought, to his flightiness – could have imagined.

As if agreeing with her bemused train of thought, Cara huffed indignantly. “My name is Cara.”

“That’s right,” Kahlan affirmed, patting her gently (and just a little condescendingly because she knew she could get away with it) on the head. “You tell him.”

“You called me ‘Kahlan’,” Cara went on, sounding as though the Confessor’s name was the most unforgivable insult in all the world.

Not so long ago, Kahlan would have taken offense at the harshness of her companion’s tone, the way she sneered as she said it, and her obvious disdain at having been mistaken for someone so apparently abhorrent as the Mother Confessor... but she knew Cara far too well by now, and was too amused to feel anything else. Helped, of course, by her almost-unique knowledge of just how unpleasantly distracted Cara was in that moment.

As the scene played itself out with minimal contribution from the Mord-Sith, Kahlan found herself unable to tear her gaze away. Cara’s expression remained impassive (albeit confused, no doubt by whatever memory-addled nonsense Zedd was spouting at anyone close enough to listen), but she was shifting restlessly in Kahlan’s arms, as if she was itching all over. Not really knowing what to say, and know that it would fall on deaf ears anyway, even if she did, Kahlan simply offered a few murmured words of encouragement and let her fingertips trail with featherlike lightness up and down Cara’s back.

“We should’ve left him that way,” she said quietly, words shaped against the shell of Cara’s ear, and the Mord-Sith gave an involuntary twitch. Kahlan smiled, perhaps more pleased by the reaction than she had any right to be. “It would’ve saved us all a lot of trouble.”

*

_Cara wasn’t the least bit surprised when Richard and Kahlan sent her away to hunt down the elusive wizard after he disappeared; it wasn’t, she convinced herself, anything to do with her unique Mord-Sith ability to repel his magic, nor was it because Richard trusted her any more than he would have trusted Kahlan or himself to bring Zedd back unscathed. Far from it, in fact; she knew, given the choice, he would not have let her anywhere near his pet wizard, knowing as well as he did that she had every intention of using force if it was necessary (and perhaps, given the trouble Zedd had caused, even if it wasn’t)._

_No, the real reason why Richard had sent her to complete the arduous task of finding and subduing Zedd by herself, while he and Kahlan got to play with shadrin horns, was because he couldn’t bear the thought of separating from his precious Confessor. Not even, it seemed, for the brief time it would have taken Kahlan (by far the better choice, Cara’s aggravation-biased mind complained) to track down the wizard in Cara’s place._

_It mattered little to her, in her admittedly unstable state, that perhaps there was some logic after all to Richard’s assertion that her propriety for repelling magic might be useful, and it mattered even less that she was the most likely to get the task done properly, one way or another. All that mattered to her was that, of all the countless and nameless things that her body was aching to do, spending hours in search of an addled old man was not among them._

_Consequently, if she were completely honest with herself, the brothel was far more the idea of her still-rebellious body than it was the product of her cynical mind._

_To some extent, she supposed the crisis with the wizard had taken the edge off her dream-induced frustrations, at least a little, but they remained stubbornly within her even so, and no doubt would continue to do so for as long as she went unsatisfied. Separation from the Seeker’s chiseled muscles and the Mother Confessor’s smouldering looks had helped too, as had the not-quite genuine concern she’d felt for the wizard’s well-being... but her body was still desperately unhappy, and (she told herself) Zedd could no doubt wait an extra hour or two to be found if a pleasurable detour would allow her to focus again._

_Of course, because the Creator evidently hated her, she never got that far. There was Zedd, as bold as brass in the very centre of the room, a broad smile on his wizened old face and what looked like a dozen whores clinging to his arm as though he were the most appealing sight they’d ever laid eyes on. For a very long moment, Cara was thunderstruck._

_“Why is it,” she demanded, all cool business and casual indifference, as soon as she’d regained her composure, “that when I’m hunting down a man, I never have to look further than the first brothel past the city gates?”_

_“Keep away from me!” Zedd whimpered._

_Given his present company, Cara supposed she couldn’t really blame him for wanting to be left in peace. Had she been in the same position (and, she mused wryly, if she hadn’t found the old bastard, she would have been), she would’ve been just as outraged by the interruption. But still, she had a job to do. Pleasure, for either of them, would just have to wait._

_“Sorry,” she told him, with perhaps a little bit more sincerity than she probably should have. “Your little adventure is over.”_

_She took a languid step into the room, eyes never leaving Zedd, though her body seemed to act of its own accord to make every curve of its presence known to everyone within thirty leagues._

_“I’m taking you back to Richard and Kahlan.”_

_“I’m not going anywhere with you!” the wizard told her, aghast, and Cara couldn’t help wondering if he would have been so brave if his memory had allowed him to remember the effect that her agiels would have on him if he continued to push her._

_“I think you’ll reconsider,” she replied, drawing one of the weapons with her usual lightning speed and smiling at the familiar pain that coursed through her._

_She took a moment to watch (with far more enjoyment than she’d ever admit to Richard or Kahlan) as the wizard’s mouth dropped open in pure terror, and then lunged towards im. Violence, she decided, was necessary in this case; she’d given him the chance to come along quietly, hadn’t she? Even Richard would have to concede that she’d had no other choice._

_Really, she supposed she should’ve seen the wizard’s vanishing act coming. The pure, undiluted rush of delicious violence was too close, too achingly close; of course she would be denied, just as she always was._

_Still, though she chastened herself with the benefit of hindsight that it had been inevitable and that she should have known better than to expect a simple capture, she was so overwhelmed by the rush of frustration that slammed into her as her agiel met thin air that all she could do was stare in blind disbelief at the empty space where the old bastard had been standing moments before._

_It was far longer than she’d ever admit before she realised she was not alone... and that she had, in fact, gained something of an audience._

_“What?” she demanded, honest aggravation colouring the frustration and shaping it into something dangerous; slowly, she turned from the gaggle of harlots to the proprietor, rolling her eyes at him with exaggerated disdain. “Of all the so-called ‘clients’ who frequent this establishment, you’ve never seen a vanishing wizard? Or a Mord-Sith?”_

_The proprietor raised an eyebrow at her, though Cara was frankly rather impressed that he’d managed to find the four seconds to meet her gaze between scooping conjured coins into a purse that was already stuffed far beyond its capacity._

_“Will that be all?” he asked, with too much feigned politeness and not nearly enough respect._

_Cara opened her mouth to tell him exactly what he could do with his practiced politeness, but something stopped her._

_Perhaps it was the way half of his whores were inching their way towards her, eyes on the agiel still in her hand as though they’d never seen one before, or perhaps it was the painful realisation that she really had no idea where in the world Zedd might have gone. Or perhaps, though she would deny it to her grave, her body had simply had enough of these absurd dalliances._

_In her mind, she could hear Richard insisting that she find Zedd, that she do everything within her power to subdue and bring him back. She could see the way his shoulders flexed and twitched with tension, the way his shirt looked too tight when he was irritable, could smell the earth in his hair as he leaned right in like he did every time he gave an instruction that he wanted her to pay careful attention to._

_And she could hear the Mother Confessor, too, telling her to behave. ‘_ Be nice, Cara _’, or ‘_ show some compassion, Cara _’, always with that deliciously ironic smirk on her face and the kind of fire in her eyes that made Cara wish she could decide whether she wanted the other woman lying dead at her feet or kneeling in worship between her thighs._

 _“No,” she said, speaking very slowly and allowing her gaze to wander with languorous appreciation over the gathering whores. “That_ won’t _be all.”_

*

Kahlan groaned.

“Cara...” she sighed, not even bothering to wonder why she was trying to chastise an unresponsive spellbound vegetable. “Tell me you didn’t...”

“I believe,” Cara purred, voice silken and dangerous in equal measure, “that my friend the wizard has adequately paid for both of our... entertainment.”

Kahlan let her head slam back against the wall, drawing comfort from the solid impact.

“You _did_!” she sighed, and wished that she could be surprised by the fact. “Cara, what in the Creator’s name is the matter with you? You were supposed to be looking for him, not deflowering his prostitutes!”

The remark was absurd even to her own ears, but it was more than she could do at that moment to form words at all, much less ones that made any degree of sense; had Cara been conscious, she knew she would be regarding her with that calculated detachment, the kind that spoke of cocksure confidence and the barely-existent ghost of underlying self-consciousness that none but those who knew her intimately would ever see.

It was that small, barely existent corner of Cara – the part that almost understood shame – that made it impossible for Kahlan to be angry with her, even for this. It wasn’t much, barely anything at all, but it showed that, despite her arrogance, there was a level somewhere inside the labyrinth that was Cara that knew there was something fundamentally wrong in what she was doing.

It was barely-existent, but it was there, a phantom trace of what she had been before she was a Mord-Sith, that unbreakable and ever-present little girl who knew right from wrong even if she didn’t fully understand what or why. She wouldn’t (and it was possible she simply couldn’t) admit to it, and she certainly wouldn’t apologise... but the unspoken, unknown understanding was there nonetheless, and seeing it realised even intangibly in Cara’s face was enough to take the edge off even Kahlan’s most justified disdain.

“I realise,” Cara went on smoothly, “that you are unaccustomed to such a high calibre of client as myself—” Kahlan couldn’t quite keep from choking at that. “—but believe me when I say that your merchandise will more than suffice for my purposes. And, since they _are_ paid for, in full...”

Kahlan groaned again, easing Cara out of her arms and depositing her unceremoniously against the wall. She was more than content to hold Cara through her suffering, to soothe her through her frustrations, to murmur encouragements in her ear for any manner of experiences, even to hold her still and steady through her intimacies with Dahlia... but Kahlan was different now, and that meant _this_ was different too.

Her feelings had changed, or, at the very least, she’d become more consciously aware of them, and that amplified tenfold the awkwardness of moments like this (admittedly more than a little uncomfortable to begin with) until she could not bear it. She wasn’t sure she could feel Cara’s rocking hips pressing too hard against her own, not so soon. Not with all the conflict still stampeding through her mind, and definitely not with the tingle that twitched its way up her spine at just the thought of her skin coming into contact with Cara’s while she lived out another woman’s sexual experiences.

It was too many shades of too much wrong, and Kahlan told herself again and again that the heat pooling in her stomach was shame at the knowledge that she would once more be a witness to these acts. It had nothing to do with her so-called feelings, she tried to tell herself, it was simply common decency to distance herself from Cara while the Mord-Sith worked through her frustrations. There was no confusion to be felt in this, only good sense.

It was a lie, though. Just like it had been when she’d turned away the first time Cara had been intimate with Dahlia.

The heat was undeniable, and it was familiar. She could no more pretend not to know what it meant than she could pretend not to know what the sudden elevation in Cara’s breathing meant, or exactly what the nature of her dreams were – at least, notwithstanding her initial ill-conceived presumption that they were nightmares; when dealing with a Mord-Sith, it was understandably hard to tell at first. But this? Now? It was too much, too fast.

Feelings were one thing, but this was physicality. And physicality, especially for a Confessor, was dangerous.

“You,” Cara said, voice husky and hard with authority. “And you.” She hummed, low and appreciative. “You as well.”

Kahlan, for her part, let out a pained whine. She had never wanted to die quite so desperately as she did just then.

*

_Over and over again, Cara told herself that she was just scratching an itch, that she was simply easing the frustration that her unwanted dreams had caused, that she was serving Richard by doing this because it meant she wouldn’t be distracted while she searched all of the Midlands for the missing wizard._

_She would have been a fool if she believed it._

_It didn’t take a wizard of the First Order to figure out that not one of the poor unsuspecting harlots had ever seen a Mord-Sith before in their lives; they were unafraid, more curious than nervous, and it was obvious that they had no idea what to expect from her. Had she been in the mood to exercise some of the ‘compassion’ that Kahlan was always talking about, Cara might have actually felt sorry for them._

_Worked up as she was, however, she simply took advantage._

_She wasted no time in ordering them to strip, enjoying the acquiescence in their eyes as they fell about themselves in a rush to obey; unenlightened as they may have been, they were still whores, and they knew the rules of the game. For her part, Cara lounged on the bed, fully clothed, watching them with unabashed hunger and tapping one of her agiels with purposeful intent against her thigh in unspoken warning of what would happen to them if they failed to move quickly enough._

_“Do you know what this is?” she asked when all three stood naked before her, raising the agiel for their inspection. A lazy smile touched her lips when they shook their head in perfect unison; this, she mused, was going to be an entertaining evening._

_“I’ve never seen—” one of them began (Cara didn’t know any of their names, though this one was a dazzling redhead), only to find herself cut off with a careless wave._

_“When speaking,” Cara drawled, slow and deliberate, “you will refer to me as ‘mistress’.” The smile twisted on her face, shaping itself into something dangerous as the woman nodded. “Now, you don’t need to know what this is to know that, if I touch you with it, it will hurt. A lot. So I strongly suggest you do exactly as I tell you, and we’ll make sure there are no accidents.”_

_It was spoken as a suggestion, though the quietly-thrumming need that pulsed now through every last inch of her was very much hoping that one or all of the women would test her. She was aching for violence, for somebody to discipline, just as desperately as she was for the pleasure that these misbegotten ladies seemed so eager to get on their knees and provide for her._

_“Yes, Mistress,” the redhead said, a sultry whine that was clearly designed to arouse, and the throbbing between Cara’s thighs grew more urgent. “Sorry, Mistress.”_

_It had been far too long, her body was telling her, since she’d last heard that title._

_When the harlots fell, at her command, to their knees, Cara allowed her eyes to drift lazily closed. The affection she’d felt for her former sisters may have dwindled into nothingness, but – just as it hadn’t stopped them featuring in graphic detail in her dreams – it didn’t stop visions of them dancing before her mind’s eye now. She was no longer in a seedy brothel with three cheap harlots paid for by a wizard whose name she couldn’t even remember any more. No. She was in a temple –_ her _temple – and these were her sisters falling upon her._

_She would punish them for what they had done._

_“You,” she said, eyes fixed on the redhead._

_“Kaye—” the woman began, presumably trying to give her name, only to find herself cut off before she could finish._

_“Did I ask you to speak?” Cara demanded, waving a hand, and her voice was all sharp edges and calculated cruelty._

_The woman bowed her head. “No, Mistress,” she admitted, sounding suitably sheepish. “I just thought you mi—”_

_Again, she wasn’t allowed to finish. Whatever she had thought of Cara, it was lost in the staggered cry the tore itself with sudden force from her throat as the Mord-Sith backhanded her swiftly across the side of the face with her agiel-wielding fist._

_“No, Mistress,” Cara echoed, mocking, and the hapless harlot let loose a soft whimper._

_Cara, satisfied that her disrespectful pet had been effectively chastened (at least for the time being), promptly turned her attention towards the other two; they’d both inched their way back a few steps over the course of the exchange, and were watching her with expressions that were equal parts intrigued and frightened. She couldn’t quite tell whether the fear in their eyes was genuine or a practiced act borne of experience with clients who enjoyed dealing in power, but she didn’t care; by the end of the night, it would most certainly be real._

_“When I speak,” she told them, “you listen. And you obey. You do not offer useless details, and you do not answer questions that were not asked of you. Is that clear?”_

_Looking very much like they wanted to run for the door, the two women nodded. The fear, it seemed, was genuine after all._

_Cara, for her part, smiled; if these so-called prostitutes were unnerved by a little violent foreplay, so far as she was concerned, she had acquired their services just in time. She rather doubted their next client with a taste for roughness would pay half so well as she was sure Zedd had paid for this, and she was more than certain that he (or, indeed, she) would not be so willing to take their inexperience and educate them the way Cara was now resolved to._

_“You would do well,” she remarked, well aware of the rapt attention all three were paying her, “to learn from this.”_

_Not waiting for a response, knowing well enough that none of her charges would be foolish enough to offer one without having been ordered to speak, she lunged forwards with her usual zeal and pulled the redhead into a bruising kiss. She relished the carefully-repressed whimper (so very close to a moan) that escaped the woman’s lips, swallowing her surprise and replacing it with her tongue, all while allowing her still-gloved fingers to caress the reddening mark where her blow had found its mark._

_It lasted barely a moment, but it was enough to make her point, and she pulled back a few heartbeats later to gaze deep into the whore’s anxious green eyes._

_“Undress me,” she commanded, voice thick with combined arousal and bloodlust, and turned around without preamble to allow access._

_With her back to the terrified trio, she turned her attention to the full-length mirror that hung from the wall in front of her, watching their expressions closely and having to work harder than she should have to restrain the shiver that wanted to ripple through her. It was almost too much, the way their bodies moved (so fluid and so fluent even in such an unfamiliar realm as this) combined with the dusting of fear growing ever more tangible in the depths of their eyes. The meshing of all that they were, so close to everything she wanted, was so profound that she found herself genuinely wondering if she could even stand to wait until she was stripped._

_“Yes, Mistress,” the redhead squeaked, and Cara moaned aloud in spite of herself at the feel of practiced fingers working at the tightly-bound laces of her suddenly sticky leathers._

_“Good,” she said, approval mingling with hunger, and let her gaze dart to the mirrored reflections of the other two where they still stood, nude and nervous. “And you two—”_

_She smiled as they snapped to attention like the well-behaved whores they were, and fought to keep still; if they kept looking at her like that, even when she wasn’t facing them, it would be a miracle if she didn’t reach a climax or two before her clothing was even out of the way._

_“—pleasure each other,” she commanded, voice rough with need._

_For a long moment, they could only stare. First at her, then at each other, twin expressions of bafflement glowing as plain as daylight on their faces, and Cara couldn’t help wondering if this was truly the first time they had been told to perform that particular service. Regardless, their hesitation was as delightful to Cara as the act itself would have been, because it presented her with the perfect opportunity to further sate the violent urges that were just as irrepressible at this point as the sexual ones, and she tore herself away from the redhead’s ministrations in a single fluid – albeit reluctant – movement._

_“Was I not speaking clearly?” she snarled, lashing out with a second sickening strike, this one aimed at the nearest of them, a pretty (if easily startled) brunette._

_Before the blow landed, however, the third woman stepped between them, catching Cara by the wrist with far more dexterity than the Mord-Sith would ever have expected from a common harlot, and stilling her hand._

_Cara growled, sucked in by anger, and yanked herself loose; she had every intention of drawing back again to deliver a bone-shattering blow to this arrogant little upstart, but something indefinable in the way the woman met her gaze held her in check. The fear was still there, clearer than ever before, but it was edged with something darker. Something..._ familiar _._

_“Your wizard didn’t pay enough for this,” the woman said, and that strange dark something (alien but unnaturally familiar) sent a sharp jolt of something so much more profound than desire arcing right between Cara’s legs._

_Surrendering for the moment the idea of teaching the insolent whore a lesson with her agiel (if only for reasons of practically while her hand was held at bay), Cara instead lashed out with her other hand, fingers clenching tight around the harlot’s throat. She had seen Kahlan use exactly this method of suppression on soon-to-be victims of confession, had even been a victim of it herself on two separate occasions (once as a threat, and once with the very real intention of killing her). As a result, she had come to respect, though she would never admit it aloud (and certainly never in the Confessor’s presence), exactly how intimidating such a simple gesture could be._

_Eyes never leaving the woman she held to such a delightfully promising stalemate, she addressed the other two. “Leave us.”_

_In all her life, she had never seen a command obeyed so swiftly, or with such eagerness._

*

Kahlan had expected to find herself witnessing a night of violence and brutality, of sex that bordered on war and of pleasure that was equal parts pain. What she saw instead left her open-mouthed in disbelief, and she watched from her safe (and, at this point, more than necessary) distance as Cara’s entire demeanour changed.

The instant she had her conquest of choice were left alone, every last inch of the Mord-Sith seemed to soften; Kahlan doubted her chosen prostitute would be aware of the fact, or even realise there had been any change at all, but she herself definitely was. Something about whatever had just happened (or perhaps what was about to happen) had struck something deep within Cara, and done so on a level than no mere harlot ever should have struck a Mord-Sith.

“You have a problem with my methods?” Cara demanded, in a voice so heavy with lurid invitation that Kahlan shivered.

What followed shook Kahlan to the core. She had no way of knowing how Cara’s choice whore had responded to the question, but she certainly knew the effect it was having on Cara. Another low moan left her, seeming to catch and hitch in her throat in the moment before it escaped, and both hands fell (almost helplessly, it seemed) to her sides.

“You don’t know the first thing about me,” she growled, and Kahlan could hear just how void of truth the words were; what in the Creator’s name was happening in that brothel?

She would probably never know, she realised (with a hint of disturbed sadness), as there was little room for talking in the minutes that followed Cara’s outburst. Kahlan had no idea which of the two women made the first move, or how the countless acts she bore witness to thereafter would possibly serve to reconcile the conflict that had been so obviously simmering between them... but, after all, this was Cara, and Kahlan had learned long ago that violence and sex were the only ways she knew of reconciling anything. The prostitute, whoever she was, was lucky that Cara had kept to her original plan and focused on the latter.

Given the fine line that Kahlan knew existed in Cara’s mind between the two, roughness and pleasure, she couldn’t help being a little surprised by how little of the former – how little _possession_ – there was in the couplings that followed. In truth, the whole display was so completely void of all the aggression and the power plays and the Mord-Sith brutality that Kahlan had anticipated, she almost felt guilty (more so even than usual) bearing witness to it. Cara was forceful, of course, because it was all she knew how to be, but Kahlan could tell that she was giving back in equal measure every last pleasure she took, and she suspected (though was blessedly deprived of having to see for certain) the prostitute ended the night just as satisfied as Cara herself did.

The shift had surprised Kahlan. Moments earlier, Cara had been blinded by her primal urges, the need to take by force and destroy whatever stood in her way; it was a side of her that Kahlan had seen intimately before, and she knew perfectly well just how much self-control it took for the Mord-Sith to pull herself back from the edge of it.

And yet, in a single moment, all of that malicious brutality seemed to have bled out of her, as though it had never been there in the first place. In its place, it left behind someone who was not a great distance away from the softer Cara that Kahlan believed herself to know now; it was _her_ Cara, the same Cara (or close enough to it) who had managed, despite the screaming of her Mord-Sith instincts, to hold herself in check that night in the forest when it had been Kahlan who’d come so close to being on the receiving end of it. It was a Cara who could not bring herself to truly hurt the woman in front of her, even as every fibre of her being was crying out for blood.

It wasn’t gentleness, and it certainly wasn’t kindness... but it was something not unlike equality, of taking and being taken in kind, of almost (but never quite) lovemaking. It was so distant from the forceful and raw-throated commands she’d been issuing just moments earlier that Kahlan couldn’t understand what had changed.

Neither, it seemed, could the prostitute in question; Kahlan wasn’t graced with the question she imagined the woman must have asked (after far more wordless physicality over far more minutes than she had any intention of ever being forced to witness again for the rest of her life), but she was granted the bemusement on Cara’s face as she heard it, and the surprising honesty of her reply as she huffed a sigh.

“You remind me of someone,” she said simply, clearly hoping that that would be the end of it.

A wisp of something she couldn’t define sparked behind Kahlan’s eyes, and she forced herself to will the feeling away.

“You have her eyes,” Cara went on, looking as though the admission was causing her great pain. “And her stubborn refusal to obey me, even for her own good.”

Kahlan expected that to be the end of it; Cara was hardly one to share her feelings at the best of times, even in those practically nonexistent moments when she would come so close to admitting that she had them in the first place, and the idea that the most closed-off, emotionally stunted human being Kahlan had ever met would choose to share her emotional burdens with a common whore was beyond laughable.

“No,” Cara said, as if reading her mind; though she didn’t know what exactly the question had been, Kahlan could tell that the answer was a lie. “No, I don’t. She was annoying, self-righteous, and filled with foolish sentiment.” Kahlan smiled, amusement touched by sorrow. “I do not miss her at all.”

And, with that, she lapsed into a tense but appreciative silence.

The reality belied by the words was obvious (even, Kahlan imagined, to a prostitute), and it carved a little at the Mother Confessor’s heart to hear them spoken to a stranger, and especially _that_ breed of stranger. Cara, who would not share anything with anyone, was offering this now, to a woman whose sole purpose was to sell her body. It wasn’t sharing exactly, because the words were so clearly false... but it was something, and it was more than Kahlan had ever been granted.

She remembered vividly how difficult it had been to even see Cara’s face, much less trust it, both in the wake of what she’d done to Dennee and simply by virtue of who and what she was. Kahlan had been as spiteful as possible, and Cara had delighted in alienating her, had drank deep of her hatred and her bitterness like cheap wine (or, perhaps, cheap women). And yet, in the company of a common harlot, it seemed to have become second nature for Cara to speak so openly (in her admittedly reserved terms, at least) and so freely.

Kahlan honestly couldn’t figure out whether her heart wanted to be envious of the whore who had been deemed so worthy of such a rare gift (and who had no idea just how precious a thing Cara’s words were), or angry at Cara for being too proud to be so honest among the people who would go on to become her second family, opting instead to unburden herself before someone so cheap and worthless as this. Had they known, Kahlan was sure, just how much Cara had been suffering the loss of her family, perhaps they would have been more empathetic. Perhaps.

It was so like her, though. So infuriatingly, frustratingly, annoyingly _like_ her. And, while it tore at Kahlan’s soul to know that her Cara (a Cara without any of Dahlia’s foolish sentiment to ground her and grow within her) had never even had that, it tore far more cruelly to know that, even if she had been blessed with those things – that ghost of feeling so early in their time together, courtesy of an almost-loved sister – she would have kept their existence locked secretly away regardless.

Kahlan cared for Cara, deeply and complicatedly, but she couldn’t change her. And she would never understand her.

After a silence that stretched on for more minutes than Kahlan could count, Cara started talking again. Her voice was calm, controlled, and Kahlan recognised the words as an explanation to herself and Richard of her brief encounter with Zedd.

“...then he disappeared,” Cara finished, cocking her head to one side and looking obscenely smug. “I’ve been _searching_ for him _all night_.”

Kahlan choked.


	22. Chapter 22

_The next time Cara visited a brothel, things were very different._

_She’d been travelling with the Seeker for a couple of months by then, and (though she still occasionally found Kahlan staring at her with quiet anger) for the most part, their little group had come to accept both the fact that Cara wasn’t going anywhere, and the fact that her loyalties to Richard were just as she’d always said they were; her dedication to duty wasn’t going to change any time soon, and she had no intention of betraying them. Frankly, it was a lesson that had taken them far too long to learn._

_As they continued to trawl the Midlands in search of the Stone of Tears (and what seemed like every stray creature that took the compass’s fancy), Cara had found her dreams wandering less and less to her former sisters with the slow-burning passage of time. After an arduous internal struggle that had lasted the best part of a week (all the more painful for being kept so secret), they had finally ceased. It had taken far more effort on her part, not nearly satisfied enough by a single visit to a single brothel, than she would have cared to admit... but, just as she had always been successful in eking out discipline amongst her sisters, she was successful too in disciplining her body._

_Ultimately, and much to her relief, it became considerably easier to concentrate on her obligations and her duty without the constant distraction of what was going on (or, as had caused the problem in the first place, what was_ not _going on) between her thighs._

_It felt strange, at first, to not be thinking of her one-time family, or to be aroused by what thoughts of them she did allow. Cara’s whole life had been a haze of pleasing and being pleased by her sisters, of ordering and obeying them in equal measure, and she couldn’t deny feeling slightly lost for a long time once she stopped thinking of them at all. They’d been so fundamental a part of her existence for so long, it felt as though her mind, her heart, and certainly her body were somehow emptier without them there._

_In negating that emptiness (though certainly in no other way), the impromptu detour came at the perfect moment._

_“A general trying to conquer all of D’Hara...” Cara observed dryly, if only to remind herself of their reason for being there in the first place, “...makes a detour to visit a brothel.” She snorted, and Richard chuckled politely. “Should I pretend to be surprised?”_

_To the credit of the place, they were noticed almost immediately, and one of the more elaborately-dressed women sauntered over with a familiarly sultry smile on her face. Cara, much to her simultaneous surprise and relief, felt little more than the barest flicker of desire rise up within her. She was disciplined indeed, it seemed._

_“Welcome to the Palace of Athenaea,” the wench greeted them, every inch the professional seductress. “What is your pleasure?”_

_Before either of them had the chance to explain their true purpose, another voice cut through the air, superior sweetness mingling with honeyed velvet._

_“Tonight,” it said, and Cara knew its owner immediately, “it seems the pleasure is all mine.”_

_Richard, it seemed, was just as quick to recognise the source of the voice, and his features tightened with uncharacteristic frigidity. “Denna.”_

_Denna (of course it was Denna) smiled, that familiar fire-and-ice smile that was the essence of who she was. It made Cara’s spine twitch with discomfort to see it turned on Richard, the new Lord Rahl._ Her _Lord Rahl. Denna would not get her claws into him, she swore silently. On her life, she would not allow it._

_“It’s good to see you again, Seeker,” Denna purred, and was careful to divide the richness of her gaze equally between her two guests; such a perfect hostess, Cara mused with no amusement. “I heard a rumour you were travelling with a Mord-Sith...”_

_As she thanked her employee, Cara found herself unable to tear her gaze from the way the too-clinging fabric of Denna’s outfit shifted with each movement. Even in the garb of a common harlot, Denna oozed promiscuous authority; even clad as an object of desire instead of a wielder of pain, a service to be sold instead of a soldier born to serve, she was undeniably Mord-Sith. It turned Cara’s stomach to see her, but she had no intention of allowing the other woman to know that._

_“Madame Denna,” she observed, eyes wandering with exaggerated appreciation. “The right hand of Darken Rahl...”_

_Denna’s lips quirked tellingly, but she made no remark._

_“...reduced,” Cara continued, comforted by the truth of the words on her tongue, “to peddling flesh.”_

_“Times are difficult,” Denna replied with a half-shrug. As if she’d_ chosen _this humiliating existence, instead of being thrust into it (as Cara knew she must have been) against her will. “A Mord-Sith has to make a living, now that the war is over.”_

_It was a simple statement, an observation more than anything else, but it was more telling than Cara had ever anticipated; to hear Denna, even dressed as she was, still speaking of herself as a Mord-Sith was more than a little intriguiging. Had it been any other of Cara’s former sisters, the word would have been a mark of submission, an acceptance of the fact that this was not what she should be doing, a grudging awareness of just how far below her station this new life was._

_Had it been anyone else, the use of the word would have stood in testament to the ache she was undoubtedly feeling, the pain at seeing Cara standing before her clad in her Mord-Sith leather, while she herself was forced to don the trappings of a common madam. Had it been anybody else, Cara would have returned that admittance with one of her own, a casual flip of her too-short and too-loose hair (all the more of a humiliation in the face of Denna’s flawless long locks), to make the point that she too knew the pain of being stripped of some part of her identity. It would have been a moment of mutual acceptance, two sisters acknowledging that they were neither of them who they were born to be._

_But this was Denna, and she was Cara, and neither of them would ever admit to the other (even if they were the last two Mord-Sith in all the world) that they had any tiny piece of common ground. Not here, not now, and especially not with Richard standing between them._

_Denna, meanwhile, was still talking. “I’m simply taking what I’ve learned,” she said, speaking with a languid deliberateness that Cara was intimately familiar with, “and putting it to good use. Pleasure, after all, is the inverse of pain. Knowledge of one makes mastery of the other so much easier.”_

_With obvious relish, she allowed her gaze to return to appraise her one-time sister, eyes sparking with unspoken challenge, and voice dripping with a disdain that would have been delicious on anyone else’s tongue._

_“You, of all people, should know that, Cara.”_

_The cut of those words was not lost on Cara, who found herself more tempted than she would ever admit to rise to the bait. If Denna was intent on raising new welts over old scars, Cara would not disappoint her in returning the gesture in kind; Denna had, after all, taken damage of her own, and Cara was more than willing to tear open her wounds too if it would grant her some leverage here._

_“The place of a Mord-Sith,” she said coolly, “is at the side of Lord Rahl.”_

_Not even Denna could hide her reaction to that news, and Cara felt the twitch of victory coiling high in her chest. Denna hadn’t been expecting that. Cara had the advantage now._

_“So...” Denna said, as smooth-tongued as ever, despite her obvious surprise; her eyes shifted once more to caress Richard, and Cara fought to keep the growl humming in her throat from breaking free. “The rumours are true.”_

_Richard, being Richard, made himself work far harder than he really needed to in a bid at skirting the issue. With his usual clumsiness, he switched the focus of the conversation to their reason for gracing Denna’s establishment in the first place, the almost-forgotten search for the D’Haran bastard that had brought them in here._

_Cara, though she knew she was supposed to concentrate on the search for General Grix (or, at the very least, to be listening to the conversation), simply could not tear her gaze from Denna. Everything about the woman was firing her blood, and she felt a familiar thirst for violence rippling just beneath the surface of her as her mind replayed over and over again those countless moments spread across both their lives, where Denna had tried to humiliate her simply for being who she was._

_“I find it’s good business to be friendly with the local commanders,” the pale-haired woman was commenting, sly and smug._

_“You provide them with whores,” Cara said cuttingly, unable to stop herself; if she did not say something, she would only end up_ doing _something instead, and the injuries caused by carefully-chosen words were easier to mend than severed limbs. “And, in exchange, they leave you alone.”_

_Denna, of course, skirted the offered bait with her usual grace. “Many of my clients would enjoy your acerbic tongue,” she commented icily, ignoring Cara’s remark. “You could do very well here.”_

_As she once more turned her attention back to Richard, dismissing Cara as though she were worth no more than one of her pathetic whores, Cara, still holding the smirk on her face by pure force of will, gripped the handle of her agiel, tightening her fist with ever-increasing pressure, until dark spots swam across her field of vision and the pain threatened to drive her into oblivion._

_If she and Denna both walked away from this meeting in one piece, and still breathing, it would be nothing short of a miracle._

*

Though Cara tried valiantly to keep her expression characteristically self-satisfied, Kahlan saw through her façade with the practiced ease of somebody who knew her too well. She’d returned to the Mord-Sith’s side the instant she’d heard the name ‘Denna’ fall from her lips, and now gently clasped Cara’s too-tense shoulder in a gesture that was something between support and worry. She knew perfectly well how much of an effort it was taking Cara to keep herself from doing real physical damage to Denna, and not just because the other blonde was no doubt undressing Richard with her eyes.

Denna, it seemed, had built her entire life on the hopes of making as many people as possible want her dead.

“There, there...” Kahlan murmured distractedly, squeezing Cara’s shoulder so tightly that her fingers hurt. “She has that effect on a lot of people.”

As if she’d heard her, Cara loosed an indignant growl.

Kahlan knew just by that small sound that Denna had taken her leave (she knew them both well enough to know that neither would have allowed such a sound escape in the other’s company), and smiled with relief as Cara shifted just enough to start talking to an invisible Richard.

She remembered, vividly, watching from her helpless worlds-spanning distance as Cara had threatened to kill the in-spell Denna if she learned that the other woman was responsible for Dahlia’s absence at the birth of her son, and suddenly found herself almost pitying the paler blonde. Rivalries between Mord-Sith were common enough, Kahlan knew, but she also knew (from experience far more personal than she’d like) the dangers of being counted among those against whom Cara held a grudge... or, indeed, being counted among the same for Denna. They were both lethal, in their own way, and with Cara having a genuine reason to hate Denna more than she already did, she was almost frightened of what would happen if the opportunity for bloodshed arose between them.

“I can’t leave you alone with her,” Cara said.

Kahlan wondered idly just how much of Cara’s hyper-defensive statement was borne of the desire to protect Richard, and how much was borne of her need to settle things with Denna. If the events in that world unfolded in a vaguely similar manner to those of Kahlan’s own world, she knew that Cara would have her chance in due time, but of course Cara didn’t have the luxury of knowing that herself.

Her arguments, Kahlan knew, wouldn’t hold any water with Richard, and she was irrationally grateful for that. The Seeker couldn’t possibly know of Cara’s history with Denna, of how close Denna had come to terminating the life of Cara’s unborn child (however inadvertently), or how she had made certain that the one person who was responsible for the child’s continued existence had missed his birth. He couldn’t have known, either, how Cara had held her intimacies with Darken Rahl over Denna’s head like a prized toy and how furious it had made Denna to know that someone so thoroughly beneath her was somehow more worthy in the eyes of her preciousLord. He couldn’t possibly have known any of that... and yet, he seemed to know enough to know that Cara needed to leave.

Just a few moments after the irritated huff that symbolised Cara’s acquiescence to the Seeker’s instruction, she came up short, expression darkening imperceptibly, and once again Kahlan knew what would happen before it did. Cara, it seemed, for all her pride in being impossible to pin down, was painfully predictable.

“Your merchandise is too delicate for my taste,” she remarked, and the disdain dripping from her tongue told Kahlan all she needed to know of the barb’s recipient.

Denna, it seemed, was every bit as predictable as her former sister.

The look on Cara’s face, though, sent a jolt of discomfort arcing through Kahlan like a lightning bolt. There was something deeply, painfully personal going on between these two women (though she knew both well enough to know that neither would utter a word of what was truly beneath the surface lest the other read the acknowledgement of it as weakness), and Kahlan felt like a voyeur to see the tension rippling in Cara’s tightly-clenched jaw and to know that the same must have been true of Denna.

It was worse even, in its own way, than she’d felt while staring at the wall and struggling to ignore the countless sex acts Cara had indulged in over the course of the spell, and not least of all because she _understood_ this. She knew why Cara loathed Denna, and she knew why Denna hated Cara in turn. She knew more of the history these two women shared than anyone but they themselves should have, and it felt wrong for her to be privy to this, as she had been to everything else that had passed between them. It was less intimate than sex, but at the same time, so much more so.

Cara had never been ashamed of her sexuality. Kahlan was fairly certain that, had she herself stumbled on the Mord-Sith being serviced by a prostitute in a seedy brothel, Cara would have simply waved a careless hand and carried on as though Kahlan wasn’t there (or, worse, thrown out a tongue-in-cheek invitation for the Confessor to join them, simply because she’d know exactly how uncomfortable that would make her). Cara had never been self-conscious about her body, or embarrassed by the needs it seemed to generate so frequently in her.

But this, a _conversation_... this was personal, and it was private. It was intercourse in a way that only existed between two mortal enemies, simultaneously so close and so dangerously distanced from each other. It was intimacy on a level that sex, for Cara, simply was not.

“I serve Lord Rahl,” Cara said, voice ringing with pride and dedication, even as it lowered to a husky purr. “You serve anyone with a purse full of coins.”

It was a point that Kahlan knew Denna would contest, even before the suspicion was confirmed by the knife-edged discussion that followed.

She hadn’t expected Cara (at least, not a Cara from so long ago, when her loyalty was so fresh and new) to be so quick to defend Richard, or so willing to emphasise her loyalty to him. And yet she was doing exactly that... and to _Denna_ , of all people. There was so much between them, so much hatred and so much bitterness on both sides, and yet, instead of raising any one of the countless reasons either woman had for wishing the other dead, Cara was instead spending her energies on speaking out in defence of the man she had chosen to serve.

Of all the possible things she could have insisted they talk of, all the countless conflicts she could have raised now that she had Denna alone, all the innumerable ways she could have exacted vengeance for a lifetime of wrongs... instead, she was defending—

“You don’t know the first thing about the Mother Confessor.” 

Kahlan’s heart leaped into her throat.

“What?” she managed, and could hardly believe that the wobbly whimper was her own voice. “What did you just say?”

Cara’s eyes flashed, even through the white film of the spell; though she knew she should probably be at least a little curious about what foolish things Denna might have been saying about her, Kahlan simply couldn’t bring herself to care. Confessors didn’t get very far in their lives without a thick skin, and Kahlan had been insulted more times than she could count, by more varied people than anyone could – Denna included, and Cara as well. It was simply the way of the world, and, more than anything else, the way of Confessors (to say nothing of Mord-Sith). Denna’s insults, whatever in the Creator's name they were, were nothing new. Cara’s quickness to speak out in her defence, however, was.

“She is a woman of honour,” Cara said, after a long moment, and Kahlan was certain she felt her heart stop beating.

“Cara...” she breathed, but her companion wasn’t finished yet.

“She spared my life,” she went on, suddenly sounding a little more strained than determined, “even after she learned I killed her sister.” 

The regret on her face at those too-familiar words spoke far more loudly than the statement itself, and Kahlan felt an irrational surge of anger at Denna; it didn’t make much sense, but it drove her to despair to know that the pale blonde, the only woman in all the world who was blessed enough to see this, to lay eyes upon such a rare moment of unguarded remorse and genuine repentance in Cara... the one person in either world who was allowed to witness a moment so precious did not (and, really, could not) appreciate it.

And still, Cara wasn’t finished.

“Her loyalties aren’t in question,” she said, and the depth of faith in her voice, even through the lingering pain of regret, stole what tiny amount of breath had remained in Kahlan’s lungs. “Yours are.”

Suddenly, it didn’t matter that Cara was speaking to a much-hated rival, that she would have said anything to Denna so long as it had the effect of undermining her. It didn’t matter that Cara hated Denna at least as much as she’d hated Triana (and probably more so) or that her mind was no doubt on anything except the so-called honour of Kahlan Amnell.

All that mattered, in that one world-stopping moment, was the fact that Cara had defended her. With nobody else around, nobody whose favour she wished to curry, no chance of Richard overhearing the exchange and praising her for it. With no possible ulterior motives, none whatsoever, she had stepped in and defended not only Kahlan’s intentions, not just her value as a human being, but her honour. Her _honour_.

It was the most important thing in a Mord-Sith’s world, honour. And yet, for reasons that Kahlan couldn’t fully grasp, much less comprehend, that world’s Cara had deemed the honour of Kahlan Amnell – the Mother Confessor – worthy of her protection.

At the back of her mind, she could hear the distant clang of Cara throwing out some thinly-veiled threat or another towards Denna (something about Richard, she imagined); it was a mark of her departure, no doubt, but Kahlan wasn’t paying attention enough to make out the words. She was simply too stunned, too blown away by what she’d heard to care about what she was hearing now.

How would her other self have reacted if she’d heard what Cara had said about her? And, far more than that, how would she herself have reacted at the time, if it had been her and not some other Kahlan? She had been oblivious, she remembered that much, to all the virtues slowly blossoming inside Cara’s heart at that point, but had she truly been so closed-minded even back then as to have dismissed such an obvious gesture of respect, if she had been blessed to know of its existence? She would’ve liked to have thought not, but she couldn’t be sure.

She couldn’t be sure of anything, she realised, except how she felt now.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

She had no idea if she was thanking Cara for speaking the words aloud, or for the unspoken trust that had borne them.

*

_It would have been easy to blame Denna for what came afterwards. Cara was distracted, unpleasant thoughts filling her mind as she travelled with haste towards the designated meeting place in search of Kahlan and Zedd; visions of what she would do to Denna if she laid so much as a finger on Richard, thoughts of what she wanted to do to her whether she did or not, and (ever present) the irrepressible memories of being forced down to her knees as punishment for defying the Lord Rahl’s right hand, unaware as they both were of the life blooming in her belly. So many thoughts, so many reasons._

_Denna had always had an inflated sense of self-importance, and, now more than ever, Cara would have given anything to free her of that encumbrance._

_Being so occupied, she supposed it made sense that her assailant (the Confessor, Kahlan’s resurrected sister) would be able to sneak up on her, and then to get the upper hand. The altercation that followed was brief, but bracing in a way that fighting anyone – even a Confessor – clad in a harlot’s attire should not have been... and, by the end of it, Cara found herself slightly battered, very nearly killed, and deeply humiliated. It was not the best fight of her life._

_She stood in mostly-silence (and mostly uncomfortable silence, at that) as Kahlan and her sister re-established their familial bond, and could only pray that the wizard, standing beside her, was not aware of her growing anxiety. In the few months since she’d joined Richard and his friends, they had slowly but surely started to trust her a little (just a little, but so much more than she had expected of them), finally allowing her to take watch and hunt by herself, and many other such things that had been off-limits for the first couple of exasperating weeks. She was not one of them, and would have been a fool to think of herself in those terms... but they were gradually growing almost acceptant of her, and she had found herself almost glad to be accepted._

_Of all the moments for Kahlan’s sister to return to the land of the living, why did it have to be now? Why did it have to come just as Cara had almost allowed herself to believe that the Mother Confessor might be coming to see her as – what had Richard called her? – an_ ally _?_

_She tried to explain herself, to make Kahlan and Zedd understand why she had been sent to find them in the first place; her eyes remained locked on Kahlan’s as she spoke, barely even aware of what she was saying. Denna’s name, of course, and Richard’s. A vague description of what had come to pass at the brothel, though she couldn’t quite be certain; her vocal chords seemed to be working alongside what small corner of her mind was still rational, but the rest of her was dissociated and could scarcely even hear herself speak._

_It didn’t matter, anyway; Kahlan, she knew, was lost to her reunion with the woman who called herself her sister. Cara could still feel the woman’s hands around her throat, cold and bony; she could still feel the knowledge of what would come next pulsing through her, the certainty of death and the distant song of the Underworld calling to her. Part of her had longed for it, even as the rest of her had screamed that she would not die like this._

_The conflict was futile, of course. Now that Kahlan knew who the mysterious assailant was, Cara knew that it would only be a matter of time before the Mother Confessor allowed her sister to exact vengeance on the monster who had forced her to take her own son’s life, and then taken hers as well. Her explanations, her loyalty to Richard, the ever-increasing need to make them realise how important it was that they stop Denna... as important as they were to the task at hand, Cara knew that they would all prove futile in the end._

_“What better assassin to send after a Mord-Sith...” Zedd mused when she was done with her explanation; he took a long step forward, filling the space between her and the two Confessors, as if he knew as well as she did the inevitability of what would soon come to her. “...than a Confessor bent on revenge?” His gaze flickered with restless urgency from Kahlan to Dennee, and then back again. “Her touch would’ve been deadly to Cara if you hadn’t’ve stopped her.”_

_Cara snorted. As if she needed to be reminded of that particular fact._

_Dennee, for her part, looked positively furious._

_“Why did you, Kahlan?” she asked, and Cara felt the rock where her heart might once have been sinking to the bottom of her stomach._

_She was not prepared for the torrent of guilt that poured itself upon her as Dennee detailed the events that had taken place at Valaria. She had been so sure that she had made peace with it, that she’d accepted (however difficult it had been) that the past could not be changed, that she had been acting under orders, and that what had been done had been necessary at the time. She had taken comfort in the knowledge that, despite her instincts and her instructions, she had made the Confessor’s death as painless as possible. It was no excuse, she knew, but it was something nonetheless._

_Those things, that knowledge... it should have been enough to stem the tidal wave of almost-pain, but it wasn’t. Not even close. And, as Dennee went on, choked by bitterness, and Kahlan fought to reconcile what she herself had made peace with and what she was hearing now from the lips of the woman she’d believed to be dead dead, Cara was busy struggling just to remain on her feet. She could never have prepared for this. Not ever._

_Part of her, some tiny part, wanted to defend herself and her actions. She wanted to speak out, to remind the ungrateful bitch that she had made it quick when she didn’t need to, that she’d gone out of her way to keep her from suffering too much, that she had risked losing face in front of her sisters if they’d caught her showing mercy to anyone, least of all the Confessor that may have cost her the station she had strove a lifetime to attain. It was the most humane murder she had ever committed, and she couldn’t deny feeling a little cheated that it was that one for which she was being judged the most harshly._

_But it wasn’t her place to defend her actions, or to justify what had happened on Valaria. Not here, not now, and certainly not in front of the woman’s own sister._

_It was Kahlan’s decision to make, hers alone, and Cara would respect her choice, even if her choice was to let Dennee eke out all the revenge that she herself had been unable to see through back in Stowcroft. It would be a cruel breed of justice indeed, she supposed, to die in agony at the hand of the one woman in all the world whose death she had ensured was painless. A cruel breed of it, yes, but justice nonetheless. If it was to end this way, she would accept her fate with grace, the way Richard had accepted her presence._

_“There’s so much that I need to tell you...” Kahlan said, sounding almost as though the world were spinning before her eyes. “But we don’t have any time. If Richard’s with Denna—” She glanced back at Cara, silently pleading with her to say it wasn’t true; Cara, for her part, could only shrug with the closest approximation to apology she was capable of. “—he’s in trouble.”_

_That, at least, was true enough, and Cara was thankful that she would at least be given the opportunity to strangle Denna before she was confessed. If she was to meet the Keeper this day, she would do so with her head held high so long as she could be sure that Denna had met him first._

_“We need to go now,” Kahlan continued, already taking off._

_Dennee’s eyes widened, and she moved with urgent swiftness to stop her sister. “No.”_

_Cara felt her chest constrict, though whether at the word itself or at the hurt in the newly-resurrected Confessor’s eyes (eyes that should have meant nothing to her), she did not know. All she knew was that the sudden tightness brought with it a depth of pain that threatened to drive her to her knees._

_How was it possible to feel such agony without the lash of a whip or the end of an agiel? How was it possible to be driven so breathless by a pain that was so physical when she hadn’t even been touched? She could not comprehend it, could not fathom or fight it. She could only struggle to keep breathing as it came closer to overwhelming her with each heartbeat, and pray that her companions would not see how deeply she was suffering._

_The fury in Dennee’s eyes cleared, and they shone bright with a resolve that made it readily apparent she would not be argued with._

_“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, and it was a simple statement of fact, “with that monster.”_

*

It was so much more difficult than Kahlan had imagined it would be, knowing that Dennee was there, alive and well and in person. She’d known it was going to happen, had lived through it herself. She’d expected this, or something similar to it, almost from the moment she’d realised that she was about to witness the slaughter on Valaria, but she had always thought that this one would be easy by comparison to the other.

It wasn’t.

She couldn’t see Dennee. She couldn’t see herself. She couldn’t even see Zedd. Even though she knew the words (or some otherworldly approximation of them, at the very least), all she could see was Cara. There was nobody else in the room, no other presence to steal her attention away from the woman in front of her, and not even the ghost of her born-again sister to tear her gaze away from the whirlpools of remorse that swirled and spun through Cara’s white-hazed eyes.

There was no Dennee, she forced herself to remember. Not here, and not now. Dennee was alive and well, living the life that had been set up for her in the wake of a resurrection that was not at all unlike the one Kahlan was witnessing now. Dennee was a thousand leagues away, or more. She was not here, and this was not her.

Dennee was happy and healthy. Cara, just at that moment, was neither of those things. Kahlan knew how Dennee’s story ended, she knew that her sister had taken with both hands the second chance at life she had been granted, and she knew exactly how precious a gift that was, both to the two of them and to the line of Confessors that had been in so much peril before then. It was a story that had ended well. Cara’s was not so certain, and Cara was the one who sat in front of her now.

Cara, for her part, didn’t say anything... but, then, she didn’t need to. Everything she wanted to say (and everything she didn’t, too) was skittering its way like the delicate ink of a brand across her features, unavoidable and inescapable, and it somehow managed to be simultaneously the most beautiful and the most painful thing Kahlan had ever seen in all her life. So unlike the Cara she knew, and yet so potently familiar at the same time. It hurt, and it was dazzling.

More than anything else in the world in that moment, she wanted to hold Cara until both of their pain subsided, to whisper promises in her ear that she was forgiven, to remind her that she was the other Cara just then, a Cara who had done right by Dennee and killed her swiftly, to make her see how fundamental a change that marked in her. It was such an enormous difference (even by Mord-Sith standards), and it gave Kahlan far greater anxiety than she’d expected to see so much remorse in the face of a Cara who had treated her victim with humanity, all the while knowing that her own Cara had not.

“You _are_ forgiven,” she murmured, knowing that Cara needed to hear it just as well as she knew that she couldn’t.

Cara gave an agonised whimper, the likes of which Kahlan was fairly certain she’d never heard from the Mord-Sith before, and her gaze wandered south to see her fisting the handles of her agiels with an intensity that she knew would be turning her knuckles white beneath the leather of her gloves. Gripping them, Kahlan couldn’t helping thinking, as though they were both the cause of and the relief from every one of her tortures.

“Kahlan,” she breathed, voice tight with strain.

“I’m here,” Kahlan promised her, lips brushing featherlike across her cheek, even though she knew better than to think for a moment that Cara had been asking for reassurance. “I’m here, Cara. I’m here, and I forgive you. Even if Dennee can’t... I do.”

“Something’s wrong,” Cara said, and turned her face upwards.

Though she knew Cara couldn’t possibly be talking about any of the countless troubled thoughts that ricocheted and danced through Kahlan’s mind, and knew just as well that she wouldn’t ever voice any of the equally numerous ones that were no doubt tearing through her own, Kahlan pulled the other woman more tightly against her, willing every ounce of the tumultuous affection she was feeling to pour itself into Cara.

“I know,” she murmured softly. “I know.”

*

_Without the pain of her agiels, Cara was lost._

_Pain was so much more than just a tool to the Mord-Sith; it was the rawest essence of everything they were. Without the pain that fuelled everything they did, they were as nothing. Cara needed that pain now, with Dennee’s ever-blazing gaze carving deep tracks through to her very soul, more than she had ever needed it before in her life._

_The thoughts that screamed through her, tearing her asunder and threatening to devour her, were loud beyond distortion; they were relentless, all-devouring, suffocating and strangling and everything in between. They were agonising in a way that her bodily-minded brain couldn’t comprehend, and without the familiar physical pain of her agiels to draw strength from, she was drowning in them._

_She did not understand this kind of pain, and so she couldn’t fight it. She understood the throbbing, pulsing scream of her agiels, the raw brutality of a pain that was tangible and visible and focused. Her mind was not designed to withstanding emotional turmoil, and it was not intended to make sense of such pointless and foolish things as regret or guilt or remorse. The agony that she felt when she met Dennee’s eyes was blinding, threatening to lay her to waste right then and there, and, without the comforting blisters of the agiel’s touch, she was lost in a sea of assault that she had no defence against._

_It sickened her, how helpless she felt in the face such foolishness as feeling and sentiment. These things should not have rendered her so weak; there was no reason for it, and absolutely no excuse. She had barely been travelling with the Seeker and his retinue for a couple of months, and already she was losing herself to them._

_She was just starting to wish that Kahlan would simply allow her precious sister to kill her already, if only to silence the screaming in her mind, when the hours of tracking and hunting and tickling discomfort finally came to an end. After what felt like a lifetime of struggling to sustain her casual indifference in the face of the unwanted ache that strove at every turn to consume her, Cara could scarcely contain the gasp that caught in her throat as she found herself facing Denna._

_And Richard._

_And what looked like the entire D’Haran army._

_Cara stared._

_So did Kahlan, but hers was the awestruck sort of staring that suggested she was completely and utterly oblivious to the enormity of what was going on around her._

_“He’s alive...” she breathed, confirming Cara’s suspicions; for all the countless things wrong with the scene playing out before them, the Mother Confessor could see nothing but her precious Seeker._

_Moving instinctively, Cara drew her agiels, and almost moaned with relief as the familiar surge of pain coursed through her veins; the intensity of it was almost enough to render her unconscious, but she was beyond caring. It drove away all her other pain (those excruciating, intangible feelings), and left her with only the comfortable familiarity of everything that had made her what she was._

_This was the pain that had made her powerful, the pain that had broken her and put her back together, the pain that flowed through every part of her as surely and as strongly as her own heartbeat. This was_ her _pain. Those emotions, those hated and unwanted feelings that bubbled up within her every time she looked at Dennee (however different she appeared to the woman whose face she’d gazed upon as she’d taken the life from her)... they all disappeared, banished in the thick smoke of delicious, blissful, physical pain. If it had killed her right then, Cara was certain that hers would have been the most glorious death in all the world._

_“That’s not our Richard,” Zedd murmured, sounding uneasy, and Cara wanted to drive her newly-functional agiel through his oversized skull._

_“Then why,” she demanded, forcing her voice to remain steady and calm, even through the pounding pain and pulsing displeasure, “is the magic of the agiels back?”_

_Had she been paying the least attention to Zedd’s mannerisms instead of the relief that was devouring her, she imagined she would have seen him shrugging with that self-righteous arrogance (‘_ well, everyone knows that, Cara _’) that somehow made her feel, despite her obvious superiority in every way, like the biggest idiot in the whole world for daring to question his so-called wizard’s knowledge._

_Whatever explanation he offered, she ignored. It didn’t matter, and she didn’t particularly care. The question, though it seemed to elude Zedd, had been rhetorical; she’d only made the point in the first place to be contrary (and perhaps, though she would deny it, to give the Mother Confessor some shred of hope to cling to as she gazed up at the face of the man she loved so deeply), and she was no more interested in hearing his theories than she was in offering thanks to the Creator for allowing her to do so._

_It was done. The pain was back, and she was finally able to ground herself in it again. That, for all of Zedd’s bluster and wisdom, was all that Cara cared about._

_She expected that the throng of D’Harans surrounding their new Lord Rahl would have made it difficult to track Denna and Richard unseen, but the army seemed fortunately distracted by their newly-pledged loyalties and weren’t as sharply-attentive as they would normally have been. Had Cara been in Denna’s place, she would have disciplined them relentlessly for such an obscene oversight, but Denna too seemed inattentive, though her distraction seemed to come from a far more appealing corner... namely that of the surprisingly complicit Seeker._

_By the time the procession had slowed enough to allow Cara and her companions to stop and form a plan, even the pain of the agiels wasn’t enough to keep Cara’s tumultuous thoughts from overwhelming her. Dennee’s gaze was still tearing into her like a pack of starved wolves devouring a rabbit’s carcass, and the sight of Denna in her white leather only accentuated the dull ache that started deep inside her chest and radiated outwards until it pricked like needles at the back of her eyes._

_She had seen Denna wear her white leather countless times before (had often wondered, in fact, if she wore them sometimes simply to show off), and it struck her with far more force than she’d expected to see her wearing them again now, and with Richard as the subject of her latest breaking._

_Even if it wasn’t truly Richard who stood there, even if Denna had done to him as she had done to the unfortunate harlot who had been sacrificed so as to resurrect Dennee, it still looked enough like him to be unnerving. She wondered briefly how Kahlan must be feeling, seeing her beloved Richard so obviously bent to Denna’s will, and the rush of queasy discomfort that churned in her gut at the thought forced her to dismiss it just as quickly._

__No _. This wasn’t about Kahlan. Tt was about Denna. Denna and her white leather and the power she wielded._

_Visions of the pale blonde in her madam’s attire, back in the brothel, assaulted Cara’s mind’s eye, and she loosed a quiet groan. Even now, even reduced as she was to peddling the cheapest prostitutes Cara had ever seen, Denna was proving herself more a Mord-Sith than her former sister. Even_ now _._

_It wasn’t just emotion. It was humiliation. It was shame, it was powerlessness, and it was inferiority. It was all the things that Denna had tried to break into her back when they had truly been sisters, and it was all the things that she would have taken from Cara by force if Dahlia hadn’t intervened at that crucial moment to drop the bombshell of Cara’s being with child upon them both._

_It was everything she had refused to grant Denna the satisfaction of seeing in her, much less dragging out of her, and it was everything she had resisted again and again, a thousand times or more over the course of the time they’d spent serving together (both with and without Dahlia’s assistance). It was everything she’d fought, all surging through her like running water now, sudden and cold and shattering... and all without the least amount of effort on Denna’s part._

_That was what hurt the most, she realised. Denna hadn’t even been trying to humiliate Cara. Not this time. Her plans, any fool could see, were far greater than the shame of one former sister, however vocal they were in expressing their mutual hatred. Ever opportunistic, Denna had her sights on the empire, the whole of D’Hara. Cara, by now, was nothing more than a barely-existent blip on her power-clouded memory. She was less than a flicker of purposeless memory... and she was staggered by how pathetic she felt in the face of that hated woman in white leather._

_She meant less than nothing to Denna, she realised, and wished with all her soul that she could find strength enough to feel the same way._

_Behind her, Dennee shifted, and the twin spasms of humiliated suffering lashed into Cara like the deceptive brutality of a sandstorm. The Mord-Sith in front, the Confessor behind. And she, Cara, always in the middle, always between them, suffering the lashes of both and wishing only that either of them would end these foolish cat-and-mouse games and end her with them._

_She wanted it over. She wanted to beg Kahlan (truly beg, without shame) to just let Dennee take her vengeance. She wanted to gaze upon Denna’s fire-and-ice smile as she breathed her last, writhing in the agony of confession. She wanted to drown in the conflict that tried so fervently to tear her apart in spite of the renewed energy of her agiels._

_She wanted simplicity again; she wanted things to be plain and simple and uncomplicated, as they had been before. Before the heir of Darken Rahl had ever come into existence, before Dahlia had been allowed to feel for him, before Denna had deprived them both of a moment neither would see again. Before she had been to Valaria and shown mercy to a Confessor. Before she had been cast out by her sisters and taken in by the Seeker. Before she had seen Denna again, before she had been forced to see Dennee._

_She wanted, with a desperation that frightened her beyond words, to stop feeling. To stop breathing. To_ stop _._

_What she wanted, however, didn’t matter. They had a job to do, and she was sworn to do it. She would not allow her weakness – her pathetic, pitiful, indecipherable agony (so like and yet so unlike true pain) – to keep her from finishing the task she had bound herself by honour and blood to see complete._

_Richard’s body was alive, albeit occupied by an unknown interloper that was not the pure-hearted Seeker any of them knew. Denna stood by his side as if she owned him (which, if that familiar white leather was anything to go by, she did). The two most important people in all the world stood right in front of her, and only a million D’Haran soldiers stood between them. It was nothing. No, it was less than nothing._

_Denna. Richard. Dennee. Kahlan._

_Death._

_It would take far more than the entire D’Haran army to keep Cara from doing what was expected of her now. It would take more even than the Keeper himself, more than all the fires of the Underworld, more than the will of the Creator. One way or another, the agony that was nothing at all like pain would end._


	23. Chapter 23

Kahlan admired, far more than she would ever admit to Cara’s face, even now, how well the other woman cast aside her own pain in deference to the job that required her attention; she herself, of course, had never been quite so proficient in that particular skill, for all the countless others she had that so exceeded Cara’s. She prided herself on being somewhat better at it than Richard, but that wasn’t saying very much at all, and it was far from difficult; as a result, it genuinely impressed her (if in a tragic sort of way) to see Cara so skilled in the art of shoving her own troubles into a disused corner of her consciousness for as long as it took to see a task, any task, through to its conclusion.

Had she been there, as herself and not some ill-educated historical version of herself who did not know or deserve the person that Cara would become, she would have insisted that they pause their mission for just a few brief minutes (acting under the pretence of her own fatigue, of course) just to give her companion a moment to collect herself. Cara was an expert in the subtle art feigning such needs on Kahlan’s behalf, whether she was weary or injured or simply pensive enough to warrant a moment’s respite; it would have felt good to be able to return the gesture in kind. As it was, she could do nothing more than watch, as she had watched far too much already from this helpless distance, as Cara discussed strategies with her imaginary companions, making plans for assaults that Kahlan already knew from her own experience would end well.

The distance was painful, and it carved away a little more of Kahlan’s heart for every occasion (so similar and yet so different each time) that she found herself aching to offer comfort and being unable to do so. Even when she had Cara in her arms, skin against leather, hands in her hair, eyes locked together, it wasn’t really Cara, and the offer meant nothing. Even in those moments where she was so sure that Cara could only be responding to her, the rational corner of her mind knew equally well that it just wasn’t possible. Her Cara was unconscious, locked up in a spell, and the other world’s Cara had never even met her.

Besides which, she mused with a sense of sorrow that almost overpowered her, neither version of Cara would have wanted the Mother Confessor’s compassion, even if she had been in a position to give it. Her Cara didn’t take kindly to displays of affection at the best of times, and ones that suggested any kind of empathy were still markedly off-limits... and, even if Dahlia’s Cara would one day find herself willing to accept some small bit of solace from a concerned companion, she certainly hadn’t reached that point yet. Kahlan couldn’t win, either way, and it frustrated her almost to the point of tears.

As if sensing the pattern of her thoughts, Cara tensed beside her. Kahlan studied her, raising a perplexed eyebrow.

“Oh, calm down, Cara,” she said aloud, allowing herself to draw a little bemusement from the sheer absurdity of the outburst in a room that was effectively void of life. “I wasn’t planning on doing anything about it.” She sighed, picturing the quirk of Cara’s lips, and allowed her own to lift in kind. “I’ll wait until you come back, and then I’ll smother you in sympathy and compassion, and so much feelings that you won’t know what to do with it all.”

There was, of course, no response from Cara, but Kahlan allowed herself the delusional comfort of believing she saw the ghost of a glare.

“All right then,” she went on, emboldened by the imagined response. “Fine. Because I care about you so much, I’ll even let you hit me for it.” She mustered a too-tight smile. “Okay? I promise. You let me hold you and take care of you and do all those things you’d never let anyone do... you let me be there for you, be the person you need, even if it’s not the person you _want_... and I promise – I _promise_ , Cara – I’ll let you hit me if you want to. I promise. I...”

She trailed off, sighing. Who was she trying to fool, anyway, pretending that the Mord-Sith could hear her? She certainly wasn’t fooling herself, and Cara was (as ever) too wrapped up in her unconscious experiences to care at all about what Kahlan was trying to say. She should have known better, she knew. She shouldn’t indulge herself like this. It would only lead to trouble.

“I’m sorry,” she sighed, not really knowing who she was apologising to. “I’ll stop.”

Cara, for her part, loosed a feral-sounding growl.

*

_“Take your hands off him.”_

_Perhaps, had this moment taken place a few weeks earlier, Cara would have relished the irrepressible note of envy in the Mother Confessor’s tone as she watched Denna pawing at the Seeker’s body as though she owned it. It would have been a source of great amusement, and perhaps, if she hadn’t been so unforgivably distracted by the chaotic thoughts still churning in her guts, Cara might have taken a moment to deliver a cutting jibe or an untimely witticism in Kahlan’s direction._

_As it was, however, all she could see was Denna – Denna, in her white leather – and she could think of nothing but the need to soak the decadent fabric through with the woman’s own blood._

_Slowly, and with the same deliberate languor she applied to everything, Denna sat up. To her credit, Kahlan managed to convince her gaze to follow the Mord-Sith and not to linger on the man who lay half-naked beneath her, and Cara felt a ripple of warning pass between the two of them as Denna’s lips curled into a calm, too-careless smile._

_“Kill her,” she ordered._

_Though her eyes never left the Confessor’s, everybody in the room knew that she was talking to Richard (or, as was more accurate, whatever dark soul she’d placed in Richard’s body). It was just like Denna, Cara mused dryly, to prove her power by causing the most pain. Cara didn’t need to look at Kahlan to know how much suffering it would cause her to fight Richard, even if he wasn’t truly Richard, and she knew just as well that Denna must have known it as well. Cara had learned far too many times that Denna never did anything that wasn’t calculated._

_Well, she decided, feeling a hungry smirk tugging at her own lips as Richard silently drew his sword and approached the woman who should have been his lover, it wasn’t all bad. In her haste to hurt the Mother Confessor, Denna had left herself open for Cara._

_As it always was, it was Denna who took the first step, and the subtlety of the movement wasn’t lost for a moment on Cara; though they’d never truly served alongside each other (together, yes, but never really_ with _each other, at least not if either of them could help it), they knew each other too well. Indeed, in a great many ways, Cara knew Denna more intimately even than she’d known Triana; for her part, Denna knew as well as her opponent did that even a moment’s hesitation on her part would see Cara drawing first blood before she could even blink. They were on Denna’s territory (hers, as everything with Denna’s mark on it was hers), and, even when it was as inevitable as the daybreak, Denna always had to be the one to make the first move._

 _Cara didn’t mind. She knew, as Denna had never quite managed to, that true victory went to the one who made the_ final _move._

_“Careful...” she warned, with not a trace of sincerity. “You wouldn’t want to get blood over your nice white leather.”_

_As opening gambits went, it wasn’t the best. Not even close. Still, it was enough. It was not perfect, but it was acceptable._

_They fought like animals. Not foolish pack beasts whose first instinct was to protect their mates or their young or themselves, who fought with feral chaos, but like true predators. The ones who knew exactly how to fell a beast twice their size with a well-timed strike, who could kill with a single blow or tear a rabbit apart with just their jaws, who fought not because it was necessary but for the thrill of it. Never wasting a blow, not sparing a breath for elaborate misdirection or graceful elegance, focused only on the pounding of bloodlust and the knowledge that swiftness and efficiency counted for just as much as raw strength. It was divine._

_The rest of the world dissolved. There was no Kahlan, no Richard, no quest, and no world in peril. There was nothing but Cara and Denna and everything that had sizzled unspoken between them for far too long... and, of course, their mutual desire to drive each other, firstly to their knees, and then to the Underworld. They struck hard and fast, with agiels and with their bodies and with anything else available to them, each blow raising the game a step higher, more and more, deadlier and deadlier, until, with a crack across the face that left her reeling, Denna called (not for the first time, Cara noted with a smirk that was quickly wiped away) for her precious guards._

_It was enough of a distraction for Kahlan to get the upper hand over the broken spectre in Richard’s body, a fact that Cara would have been entirely oblivious to had Denna not chosen that moment to take her roughly by the hair (and Cara had never been more aware than she was at that moment of just how desperately she missed her braid and the power it represented) and spin her around with roughness enough to render her dizzy. Head held in place by the relentless Denna, Cara found herself forced to watch as the Mother Confessor stood over the man she was sworn to serve with both daggers drawn and a look on her face that made it readily apparent she had every intention of using them._

_“Kahlan!” Denna shouted, and Cara used every ounce of her strength to hold the other Mord-Sith’s agiels away from her exposed chest, even as she found herself lost to the feel of Denna’s front pressing unnecessarily tight against the laces at her back._

_All she could feel was Denna, tense and taut against her, alight with the fever-grip of violence just as she herself was. All she could hear was the staccato rhythm of their panting breaths, heavy on the air, as they held each other to a stalemate that left both their bodies shaking beneath the weight of it. And, above everything, all she could see was Kahlan, the sister of the newly-resurrected Confessor whose life she had ended, gazing down into the eyes of the man she loved, the man Cara had sworn to serve, prepared and willing to do what needed to be done in spite of the pain it would cause._

_Kahlan, who was about to do her duty just as Cara had done hers on Valaria. Denna, pulsing and hot against her back, the thoughts in her mind of anything but duty. The Mother Confessor who should have been the pinnacle of everything Cara hated, and the Mord-Sith who should have been her sister in arms... and all she could think of was driving her agiels through Denna’s chest and rushing to Kahlan’s side._

_She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t move. All she could do was hold on as though her life (and the lives of everybody in the room) depended on her keeping Denna back, on her holding down the tide of slaughter that ran deeper than oceans through them both, even as the white-clad woman continued to ignore her in deference to taunting Kahlan like it was her reason for living._

_“You aren’t going to kill the man you love?” she demanded, mocking._

_Had Cara not been so utterly paralysed by the sights and sounds and sensations that danced and spun maddeningly before her, she would have taken the opportunity of Denna’s cockiness to regain the upper hand. But still she couldn’t move. Not until Kahlan did. Not until the deed was done and the interloper in Richard’s body was driven to the Underworld where it belonged. Not until, one way or another, this was ended._

_“He’s not the man I love,” Kahlan said quietly, as Cara had prayed she would, and a tortured scream ripped from Denna, vibrating painfully through them both, as the Mother Confessor drove her twin blades deep within the Seeker’s heart._

_It was all the incentive Cara needed to collect herself and deprive Denna of her precious advantage. All the rage and shame, the confusion and the hurt, and the countless other less definable emotions that had been tumbling through her with too much speed for her to ever pin down... everything she’d felt, from the moment she and Denna had laid eyes on each other back in the brothel, to the moment they were breathing in now, surged up within her, unstoppable and uncontrollable._

_Its power was more than enough to tear her free of Denna’s grasp, and Cara whirled around with all the force of a hurricane. Her fist snapped across the side of Denna’s face, and the strength behind the blow coupled with the wounded battle cry she felt tearing from her lips to send the white-clad Mord-Sith reeling backwards in shock and obvious pain._

_Had the guards not chosen to finally make their appearance at precisely that moment, Denna would not have survived another._

*

It wasn’t the first time Cara had been locked in combat since the spell had taken effect, but it was certainly among the most brutal. Kahlan had held her through bouts of violence (both given and received) several times over the course of the spell, but never quite like this.

Usually, when she saw Cara growing restless and throwing too-real punches at imaginary enemies, she would take her into her arms and try to soothe her, and that would be all she needed to do. Though the soothing itself would, of course, prove fruitless, the gentle hold was usually more than enough to keep Cara in check for the duration of the episode. It wasn’t a lot, and the plaintive almost-broken corner of Kahlan’s heart that cared too much insisted it wasn’t enough... but it kept her safe from harm, and that (she told her heart) was what mattered.

This time, though, it was different. This time, for the first time, she wasn’t simply holding Cara. She was holding her _down_.

Cara was often primal, frequently aggressive, and always unrestrained. Kahlan had watched more times than she could count, both within and outside of the spell, as Cara had lost herself to the thrill of a fight or the bloodlust of a hunt. She was the closest thing to a wild animal that Kahlan had ever seen in a human being, and she often found herself impressed and frightened (in almost-equal measure) by the fact.

Here with Denna, though, Cara had surrendered everything that made her even partially human. She was lost, completely and utterly lost, to the pure and unfettered brutality.

For a few terrifying moments, it had looked as though Cara would do herself some real damage; she’d lurched forwards, blinded by so much more than the spell, and slammed herself without preamble into the far wall. Once, then a second time, and it had been far more seconds than it should have been before Kahlan had been able to suppress her shock for long enough to lunge after her in and drag her away.

Oblivious, and yet aware enough of the fact that she was being restrained by something, Cara had struggled. Ignoring her (a feat that took considerably more effort than she would ever admit), Kahlan had gripped her tightly enough that both their arms began to shake, holding her in place, forcing her down to the floor, pinning her, willing her to just stay still.

They remained there in the centre of the room for far too long, limbs locked together, bodies almost as one; it was the closest embrace they’d shared since all this had begun, and possibly even longer than that, and yet it felt so unlike intimacy that it made Kahlan feel something like guilt. Cara’s efforts to free herself were forceful, feral; she was struggling and flailing as though she were under assault, and Kahlan couldn’t deny how uneasy she felt at having to keep the Mord-Sith so close and yet so completely against her will.

Cara fought her like a chained beast, and it was breaking Kahlan’s heart to hold her through that, to grip her so tightly that she was sure her fingers and Cara’s arms would bruise before too long. Cara wanted to be free, and Kahlan was holding her down by force; she, who understood more intimately than most the trauma that came with being tied down, and it made bile rise in her throat to be the one shackling Cara like this. Of course it was for her own good, Kahlan knew that, but that didn’t make it any easier to watch her claw at the air in the frenzied, savage hopes that it would somehow cut her loose from this.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured as Cara jerked roughly beneath her, howling. “I’m sorry, Cara. I’m sorry. But whatever’s happening in there, whatever you’re going through, it’s not happening out here. If I let you go, you’ll break something... and I don’t mean her. I mean _you_. Not Denna, Cara. You. And I can’t... I can’t let you hurt yourself. Not like this. Not over _her_. She’s not worth it, Cara. She’s not worth hurting yourself over.”

As if on cue, Cara’s entire body went completely slack, and the sudden loss of tension (where there had been so much of it just moments ago) almost caused Kahlan to topple over. Her knees buckled, and she braced herself against the threadbare carpet in a bid at holding herself upright before she slipped and collapsed atop the helpless Mord-Sith.

Apparently, the fighting was over, at least for the time being, and Kahlan allowed a shaky sigh of relief to bubble from her as she pushed a strand of wet hair out of Cara’s eyes. Even through the spell-whitened film that covered them, Kahlan could see the fiery resolve blazing within her, and knew it would only be a matter of time before the struggling started up again; for the moment, though, it was enough just being able to hold her without having to use force.

Kahlan remembered very little of the encounter, as it had happened to her, having been focused for the majority of the time on what had been going on between herself and Richard (or, as it had turned out, General Grix in Richard’s body). She remembered they had fought Denna to a stalemate, and remembered the way the D’Haran army had turned their back on her the instant they realised that the man they’d assumed to be their Lord Rahl was dead. She remembered the silence that had weighed down so heavily upon herself and Cara as they’d carried the Seeker’s body between them for the too-long journey back to the brothel, and the blank look in Cara’s eyes as they’d travelled together. As though, without Richard there to balance them, she truly expected Kahlan to turn around and confess her simply because she could.

More vividly than anything else, though, she the way Cara had kept as great a distance as possible from Dennee for the remainder of their (blessedly brief, Kahlan couldn’t help thinking) time in each other’s company. But she did not remember Denna, and she definitely didn’t remember this much violence simmering between the two Mord-Sith.

It shouldn’t have surprised her, remembering so vividly what she’d witnessed at the birth of Cara’s child. She should have expected it, should have known that Cara would be itching for the chance to wreak vengeance on Denna for banishing Dahlia from the birth of the child she had nurtured so completely in the womb. Indeed, had she been in Cara’s place, it wouldn’t have surprised Kahlan if she too would have proved just as hungry for justice; was it, after all, really so different from the hatred she’d felt towards Cara for what she’d done to Dennee? Really, the depth of violence blazing like a beacon from Cara should not have surprised her at all... and yet, for reasons she couldn’t fully grasp, it still did.

Perhaps, she mused, she simply hadn’t expected Cara to still care so much. It had been long enough since she’d been so thoroughly outcast by her former sisters, and she had finally been able to cast aside what flickering candle of loyalty she’d still been holding for them. Even watching this other version of her friend evolve through one-sided conversations and barely-seen moments taken out of context, Kahlan had seen enough to know that much, to understand just how far that world’s Cara had come even by this point. It pained her to learn that, beneath the practiced indifference and tart sarcasm, the heart within (a heart that she knew the two versions of Cara, however different they were on the surface, would both deny had ever existed) still ached for her sisters... and for Dahlia.

Even after months in their company, Kahlan realised, even after she had utterly rejected her former life and sworn her allegiance to Richard alone, dismissing the life she’d once had and the women who had made it... still, some tiny corner of Cara cared enough about a woman she believed she wouldn’t ever see again, and a child she _knew_ she wouldn’t, to be overpowered by violent urges and bloodlust when facing the woman who had wronged them both.

Kahlan didn’t know whether to be angry with Cara for letting long-past grudges cloud her judgement beyond all the progress she’d made, or proud that she had allowed herself the flaw of caring.

*

_If Kahlan hadn’t stopped her, Cara would have forgotten all about Richard. All she could think of was killing Denna._

_For all the ways she had come to honestly respect the Mother Confessor (truly and deeply, as a capable ally), she had never been quite so grateful for her presence as she was in that moment. Kahlan had stopped her, probably not even realising just how deeply Cara’s hatred for her former sister had run. Certainly, she couldn’t have known just how close Cara was to abandoning everything she had pledged her life to, how close she was to simply charging off in pursuit of a vendetta that should have been laid to rest far too many years ago. And yet, though she couldn’t possibly have known or understood either of those things, Kahlan had still known enough to stop her._

_She stood there, panting, watching the flash of white leather as it vanished into the throng of unsettled D’Harans, and struggling with far more effort than she’d care to admit to steady both her breathing and the relentless pounding in her chest. She knew that she needed to turn around, to face Kahlan and the body of Richard, to take charge and insist on their departing this place before the handful of D’Haran stragglers got restless... but it was simply beyond her power to take a step, much less harness the authority she knew she needed._

_Given the choice, she would have convinced herself that her hesitation was borne of a desire to ensure Denna wasn’t going to come back. It was, after all, the sensible thing to do, especially with an opponent as crafty and unpredictable as Mistress Denna, and it would have been easy to talk herself into believing that that was the true reason for her unforgivable hesitation... for her outright inability to turn around and look at her companion. Deep down, though, she knew that wasn’t true, knew that the insistence would be hollow even in the private chamber of her own mind, and so she didn’t bother wasting her time on it._

_The truth of it was that she simply couldn’t face the Mother Confessor. Not while her thoughts were so chaotic and her breathing was so uncontrollably ragged. Not with the weakness so plain upon her own features, and she so unable to mask them._

_It was an unforgivably long time – minutes, even – before she composed herself enough to summon all her self-control and turn around; when she finally did, she met Kahlan’s grief-tainted eyes with a steely resolve that spoke nothing of the torrent raging within._

_“We should get going,” she said. “The faster we get back to the brothel, the sooner we get the true Richard back.”_

_Wordlessly, Kahlan nodded; Cara knew she should have felt something like sympathy, should have voiced some kind of apology for what the Mother Confessor had been through, but she didn’t. Couldn’t. The only thing she could bring herself to feel, though she knew it was selfish (and she couldn’t help briefly wondering why that bothered her so much) was relief at the fact that Kahlan was so distracted by her own troubles that she’d completely failed to notice Cara’s._

_They carried the Seeker’s body between them. Had Cara been of a more nostalgic cast than she was, she might have spared a moment or two to muse on the irony of a Mord-Sith and the Mother Confessor working together to share the burden of carrying the Lord Rahl (the_ Seeker _) to a D’Haran brothel. As it was, her mind was filled with thoughts far too dark to allow the levity of such a bemusing observation, and so she let the ill-conceived joke drift by unobserved. Instead, in typically masochistic Mord-Sith style, she dwelt on those other thoughts, allowing the darkness to eat at her from the inside out until she simply could not hold it in a moment longer._

_“Kahlan,” she murmured, hating how inescapably thick her voice had become and wishing she could blame it only on the fact that they’d been travelling in silence for over an hour._

_The Mother Confessor made no verbal acknowledgement, but Cara knew she had permission to go on regardless._

_“I would have killed her,” she admitted, tightening her grip on Richard’s arms in a bid at keeping the self-directed bitterness from creeping into her words. “If you hadn’t stopped me. If you hadn’t reminded me of my obligations to Richard. I would have chased her to the Underworld... I would have struck a bargain with the Keeper himself, if I thought for a moment that it would have ensured her death.” She blinked back the hate, willing herself to remain strong. “I am sorry for that.”_

_Across the dead weight of the Seeker’s body, Kahlan’s lips were smiling. Her eyes, however, were not._

_“You don’t need to apologise for that,” she said, and the gentleness in her voice seemed to surprise them both. “Spirits, Cara, we all want to see Denna dead.”_

_Nodding, but unconvinced, Cara bit down on her tongue to keep from saying anything further. The need to explain – the hate, the pain, everything – was surging up unbidden within her, so profound that she almost choked on it, and she swallowed it down by sheer force of will._

_It made no sense; true, she had developed a grudging but sincere respect for the Mother Confessor in the time they’d been travelling together, but this was dangerous. Worse, it was foolish. She was a Mord-Sith, and Kahlan Amnell was the Mother Confessor; it made no sense at all that she would suddenly want (and so desperately) to unburden herself of the tumultuous thoughts that haunted her at all, least of all to this woman._

_And yet, she did. Because she knew, beyond all doubt, that Kahlan had been feeling these very same things for months._

_When she looked at Denna, all she could see was Dahlia. Dahlia, and Cara’s son being ripped from her arms so that he might be taken to his father (the_ Lord Rahl _), never to be seen again by the woman who had borne and birthed him. All she could feel was the painful knowledge (sharper than a dagger, fiercer than an agiel) that Dahlia, every bit as much the boy’s mother as Cara herself, would never have even those brief few seconds that Cara had. All she could think of was killing Denna for depriving Dahlia of the moment that was all she had wanted in the world. It was all she could think of, and it was destroying her._

_And she knew that Kahlan felt it as well. Every breath, every ounce of suffering, everything, in every single moment that she looked at Cara. Dennee had lost both her son and her own life at Cara’s hands, and Kahlan had lost a sister and a nephew._

_It was hubris, and it was tearing Cara asunder just to think of it._

_Denna. Dahlia. Dennee._

_And she, Cara, the lone thread that tied them all together, in death and in loss._

_Dennee, a mother forced to take her son’s life in the few heartbeats before she lost her own. Dahlia, deprived of the chance to see the newborn child she had come to love (and before he had even breathed his first breath) as though he were her son too. Denna, laughing and smiling as she plucked the boy from Cara’s arms as though it was her divine right to take him away from her._

_And, again, Cara. Witness to everything and instrument of it all. So much pain, in so many directions, and all so very similar. Dennee’s death, Dahlia’s disappointment, Denna’s triumph. All brought about by her hand._

_It was no wonder the Confessors wished her dead. She deserved it, more and more with every moment she was spared._

_And Denna, wherever she was, deserved far worse._

*

“May I speak with you?”

For a long moment, Kahlan forgot that Cara couldn’t possibly have been addressing her, and felt her pulse quicken at the question as it fell from her lips. She’d been quiet for a while, and it was only by the occasional subtle shifts in her posture that Kahlan knew they’d reached their destination, and were no doubt preparing the spell that she herself recalled too well, to bring Richard back into his own body.

Cara had shifted from stiff stoicism to nervous energy in a matter of moments and, though the change was minimal (at least by Cara’s standards), Kahlan was more than sufficiently keyed into those slight changes by now to understand their meanings, and clasped the Mord-Sith’s shoulder in a gesture of unspoken reassurance. Cara, of course, wouldn’t even notice, but it gave Kahlan some comfort to be able to let her know with certainty (however futile it may be) that the spell would prove successful, and that Richard would return to himself as though nothing had ever happened to him.

It wasn’t often that Kahlan’s foreknowledge was a blessing (given the nature of those tumultuous first couple of months, it was more often a curse), and on these precious scattered moments when she knew beyond all doubt that things would end on a positive note instead of a negative one, she had every intention of relishing them, regardless of how little effect the optimism would have on her charge.

“I just want you to know...” Cara went on, and Kahlan wondered who she was talking to.

There was a tension in the Mord-Sith’s already-taut posture that told her this was important, but she couldn’t read any details of it in her face; her eyes, blank as they were, were downcast, jaw so tight that it had gone white at the edges, and the muscles in her shoulder were twitching in spasm beneath Kahlan’s fingers. She was terrified, but, as hard as she tried, Kahlan simply could not figure out what could possibly be frightening her.

“It’s all right,” she soothed emptily.

Cara sucked in a lungful of air, then another, and Kahlan allowed herself to pretend that she was emboldened.

“...I regret what I did on Valaria,” she managed, the words coming in a rushed choking breath.

Kahlan’s mouth fell open.

They had travelled together for more than a year, and in all that time Cara had never actually stood up and said it. Oh, they both knew it was true, of course, knew that Cara had evolved far beyond the remorseless creature she had been when she’d done those things to Dennee... but, for all that knowledge, Kahlan had never heard the words spoken aloud. Not once. It was simply the way things were, and she had long ago come to accept (though it cut deep) that it was beyond Cara’s power, even now, to open up her mouth and apologise for the heartbreak she had wrought at Valaria.

Apparently, though, it wasn’t beyond the power of the other world’s Cara, and the realisation caused another bone-deep welt to carve itself into Kahlan’s chest. What else had she missed out on, keeping company with her Cara instead of this one? What other shattered moments of fleeting but all-consuming humanity had Zedd torn from their Cara’s soul?

This Cara, at least in as much as she’d affected Kahlan’s own life, seemed to have become the exact opposite of the Cara that she had come to believe she knew so well. This woman, this alien Cara who had been wiped from existence... she had not only shown mercy to Dennee, but had _apologised_ for it as well. It was still an act of unforgivable brutality, Kahlan couldn’t deny that, but she knew too well how much worse it could be; she knew how it felt to travel with a Cara who had been neither merciful nor apologetic, and to come to care for her despite those things. She ached to tell the Kahlan Amnell of that world how lucky she was, but she knew that would serve neither of them.

Still, though, she ached. For everything the other Kahlan would never know she had, and everything that she herself had been denied. For a Dennee that had suffered, and a Dennee that hadn’t. For Cara, the one who had tried to make things right back then, and the one who would never be able to – the one who was trying so hard to make it right now. And for them both, Kahlan and Cara and _them_ ; they had neither of them expected to ever hear those words, to have them spoken, to have them shared... and yet they were both living it through now, together. If there was one good thing to come of Zedd’s meddling, Kahlan mused, perhaps this might count.

Cara, her relevation made, said nothing for a few long moments (long enough, at least, for Kahlan’s mind to fill with macabre thoughts and a depth of emotion that stunned her); the rigid tension in her posture increased tenfold, though, and Kahlan let her hand slip down from her shoulder to caress the curve of her back.

Cara’s spell-blind eyes were locked on the floor, and, if Kahlan didn’t know better, she would have sworn the other woman was fighting back tears. Or, if not quite tears, at the very least a wave of devestation powerful enough to render even a Mord-Sith helpless in its wake; it was a rare sight, and one that completely contradicted her own (admittedly hazy) memories of a Cara who hadn’t even been able to spare so much as a glance at the resurrected Confessor she had tortured to death. It was brutal, heartbreaking, and, for Kahlan, excruciating to behold.

At last, Cara raised her head up, and Kahlan didn’t need to see the depths of her eyes to know that defeat was gathering like liquid pain within them.

“I needed to say it anyway,” she whispered, with a nod so tiny it was barely there at all.

Kahlan’s heart broke for her.

*

_Cara had known the words (she couldn’t quite bring herself to call it an apology) would be futile before long she found the strength to say them, but she could no more stop them falling out of her than she could stop herself feeling the things that had tangled up around her for so long that she worried she might never be able to pull herself free._

_It didn’t surprise her that Dennee hadn’t been able to accept her admission, and she honestly couldn’t blame the other woman for that. Had Denna been there in that moment, and told Cara that she regretted causing Dahlia’s absence at the birth of Darken Rahl’s son, Cara would have branded her a liar with words and then branded her a traitor with her agiels. She would have relished, all the more, the look in those haunting ice-cold eyes as she’d driven both of her weapons into Denna’s chest until she breathed her last._

_She would have been as ruthless as she possibly could, and she would have enjoyed every last moment of Denna’s suffering. And the Confessor – Dennee – must have been aching at least that desperately for revenge on Cara herself. In fact, Cara knew, she was probably feeling it more._

_Dahlia had not died at Denna’s hand, and neither had Cara’s own son. In terms of pure blood and tears shed, Cara knew that her hatred for Denna should have been infinitely less than Dennee’s hatred for her. Cara’s son had not been killed (not before her eyes and certainly not by her own forced hand), and Dahlia had not been slain before Cara’s eyes for daring to show affection for the boy when he was still in the womb. None of those things had happened to her; for all the pain that she had endured as a result of it, the boy and the woman were still, so far as she knew, alive._

_All she had suffered, really, was the heartache (and it was an ache that never should have touched the hardened heart of a Mord-Sith such as Cara anyway), and the pain of knowing that Denna’s pettiness had denied Dahlia a chance to see the boy who ought to have been hers by right. It was as nothing compared to what she had put the Confessors through._

_The thought caused her to come up short, and another flare of wounded self-loathing tore through Cara as she forced herself to remember again and again all of the damage she’d caused to them, both by dealing it herself to Dennee and vicariously, without even knowing it, by making Kahlan mourn for her lost sister. She had deprived Dennee of a son, and then deprived Kahlan of a sister, both in a single mission, and it simultaneously frightened and sickened her that she was feeling a remorse so true and so deep that it left her aching once more for the penance of the grave._

_How had she become so weak, so quickly?_

_No, she decided, clenching her jaw tight enough to hurt. She couldn’t allow herself to think of this. Dennee had turned down her offer of regret, as Cara had known she would, and it would not do anyone the least bit of good if she dwelt upon things that were past. All that mattered now was that Richard and Dennee had both been returned to the land of the living, and that Denna still had the Seeker’s compass in her possession. It was obvious what they needed to do._

_But, of course, it wasn’t so simple. It never was._

_The detour to Lucinda’s home was Richard’s idea, as were so many of the increasingly numerous ideals that made Cara wish Triana had found the stomach to kill her when she’d had the chance. The Seeker had wanted to do right by the life his kind-hearted whore had left behind when she’d died so that Dennee might live again... and, though Kahlan and the wizard seemed to appreciate the thoughtful gesture he was making in suggesting that Dennee settle in her place and raise her orphaned child in tragic testament to the mother he had lost and the son she had, Cara was restless._

_For all the familial warmth that surrounded the modest home that had once been Lucinda’s, Cara could see nothing more than the haze of red behind her eyes, and could feel nothing more than the suffocating need to get back on the road. As touching as all this was (she_ supposed _), all she wanted to do was get back to the quest they had been distracted from for too long._

_That changed when Richard held Lucinda’s son._

_Nothing could have prepared her for the blow she felt as she watched the Seeker holding the little boy in his arms as though it was the most natural thing in all the world. Had she not been so determined to keep every last trace of feeling from touching any part of her that could be seen, she would have fallen to her knees beneath the sheer staggering weight of it._

_She wondered (and hated herself for wondering) if Darken Rahl had let his eyes sparkle when his newborn son laughed, as Richard’s eyes sparkled now as he held an infant that meant nothing to him. She wondered, too, if he had smiled at his heir the way Richard was smiling now as he turned from the child in his arms to its new mother._

_Had there been pride in Darken Rahl’s eyes as he’d sent his son away to be trained by the Dragon Corps, the way pride shone in Richard’s eyes as he gently handed Lucinda’s baby over to Dennee? Had he felt the pang of loss as the boy had left his sight, the way Cara felt it now as Dennee remarked on how similar the child was to her own lost son?_

_It seemed like a lifetime before Richard and Kahlan were able to drag themselves away from Dennee and her newly-adopted child. Cara watched them carefully, outwardly displaying nothing but the utmost patience, even as within she was being torn apart by a force so much more powerful than confession._

_This would be her penance, she decided. She was the reason these women had suffered so much; she was responsible for the pain and the death they had endured, separately and together, and now she would suffer in turn as they found a bittersweet happiness to fill the void of what she had taken from them. It was no less than they deserved, this moment of tainted peace, and it was no more than Cara deserved to be forced to watch it._

_“Now,” Richard said at last, and Cara found herself fighting to suppress a whimper of genuine relief, even as she still couldn’t tear her gaze away from the scene of familial bliss being played out like a puppet-show before her eyes. “Let’s find that compass.”_

_Cara fisted her agiels. Richard could say what he liked about his precious little compass. All she wanted was Denna._


	24. Chapter 24

Cara didn’t need to utter a single word for Kahlan to know the exact moment when Denna breathed her final breath.

She had been silent for a while, and Kahlan had taken advantage of her placidity to shift them both into a slightly more comfortable position. Though she knew Cara would protest the instant she came out of the spell and found herself back there, she had lifted the motionless Mord-Sith back onto the bed (and, by so doing, discovering that Cara was far heavier than her small stature suggested), and eased her back down against the pillows.

Cara, ever unresponsive, hadn’t said anything about the shift, her body moulding itself automatically to the shape of the bed as she was deposited there, and exhaling something like a breathy sigh. Kahlan, meanwhile, had indulged herself, even as her common sense disapproved, by laying down as well, flush beside her.

The bed was still too small for the two of them, but Cara was unconscious (or as close to it as anyone could be with their eyes wide open), and Kahlan didn’t mind. After what had transpired with Dennee, yet another memory that had been so changed from the reality she knew so well, she needed the closeness, the warmth of another body – of _Cara’s_ body – next to her. She needed the gentle rise and fall of Cara’s chest, the rhythm of her breathing, the beating of her heart. She needed Cara, willing or otherwise... and she knew that she would be needed as well (and probably sooner rather than later), just as soon as the spell took Cara down another unpleasant avenue.

Denna’s death in itself wasn’t enough to break Cara’s silence.

It surprised Kahlan that she didn’t twitch or flinch, or even lunge forwards in violent combat as she had done last time; she had expected something cataclysmic, something identifiable. She’d expected an altercation filled with fire and violence, bone-shattering blows dealt and received on both sides. Something, anything, that would identify it as the significant event she knew it was.

Instead, the incident followed almost perfectly (at least, so far as Kahlan could tell) the same path that had come to pass in the world she knew – a quick, simple, effortless assault, from a distance so great that Denna didn’t even stand a chance. A single arrow to the back (mirrored almost comically in the way Cara unconsciously played out the shot), and then there was nothing.

Kahlan remembered it well, remembered the self-satisfied pride on Cara’s face, the pure release of having finally stopped the woman who had hurt Richard. And yet, though the method of slaughter seemed to be the same, Cara’s reaction here certainly wasn’t. Her expression flickered, body going rigid and rough with something that looked surprisingly like disappointment.

“Cara?” Kahlan asked gently, fingertips trailing up and down Cara’s arm, occasionally tangling in the laces. “She’s dead now. You killed her. Just like you said you would.”

True as it was, the statement seemed to do little to ease the tension in Cara’s body, nor did it do anything to soothe the distress on her face. Kahlan sighed, leaning in closer, letting her head rest on the Mord-Sith’s shoulder, feeling the soft blonde hair fall about her face as she kept up the rhythmic brushes of her hand. She didn’t know what else to do, didn’t understand why this was a source of such sorrow to Cara, who had seemed to want nothing more than to see Denna dead. Surely that world’s Cara would be more delighted to see the deed done than even her own Cara had been. Surely she’d be alive with the thrill of vengeance served, the sadistic joy that Kahlan knew (hard as it was to accept the fact) flowed thicker than blood through her Mord-Sith veins.

But there was none of that. Cara looked almost as though she’d wished it had never happened at all, and Kahlan couldn’t fathom why. And so, not knowing what to do, she allowed her hand to slide up and over Cara’s arm, her shoulder, her throat, until she cupped Cara’s chin and turned her sightless white eyes towards her.

“You did well,” she said.

Cara twitched, looking very much as though she’d heard (and wholly disapproved) of the words, and Kahlan huffed a sigh as her companion’s head dropped back onto the pillows and she gazed blindly up at the ceiling, oblivious once again to Kahlan’s existence.

“We’ll never find her body,” she sighed.

And, with those five simple words, Kahlan understood the difference, and just how significant it was. Her Cara had been just as intent on seeing Denna dead, but Kahlan had always suspected it was out of loyalty to Richard and a burning desire to see the woman who had killed him, however briefly, aptly punished for the deed. Whatever personal issues had simmered beneath the surface of the two Mord-Sith, they seemed to have been worked out some years ago, leaving only two former sisters on opposite sides of a war. The method of Denna’s death hadn’t mattered to her Cara; so long as the other woman died by her hand, her death would always have been satisfactory.

It wasn’t the same for Dahlia’s Cara, Kahlan realised. This Cara, the one Kahlan could see crackling just beneath the tainted surface of her Cara, was acting out of anything but loyalty. She was acting out of vengeance, seeking compensation for the things Denna had done to her, and for what she’d done to Dahlia. It was a thousand worlds apart, and the difference was chasms wide.

Kahlan knew far too well, and far too intimately, just how important it was to see the subject of a vengeance killing die. To feel the blade go in, to taste the sweet tang of their surrender, to catch the scent of their blood, their breath, their death. She was no Mord-Sith, far from it, and even she knew how incomparably valuable those things were. For Cara, whose very existence was blood and bone and pain, it must have been a thousand times more true.

“I’m sorry,” she offered, with sincerity, pressing her lips to the crease on Cara’s chest where leather met skin. “I’m sorry you couldn’t see her die. I’m sorry she wouldn’t let you have even that small victory over her. I’m sorry she took that away from you too. I’m so sorry, Cara.”

Cara shifted uncomfortably. At her sides, her fingers were clenched into tight fists, and Kahlan brought her own hands down to try and loosen them before Cara gave herself an arthritic injury. It took far more effort than she’d ever admit to pry the Mord-Sith’s fingers apart, and she held them tightly in her own to make sure she didn’t fist them again as soon as she was released.

It was for Cara’s own good, she told herself. It was a necessity, a part of the duty she’d promised to uphold by being here... but that did little to negate how pleasant the cold leather felt against her too-warm hands, or how naturally Cara’s fingers seemed to wrap around her own. And it did nothing to still the butterflies that flitted deep in her belly.

After taking a moment or two to properly compose herself, Cara shifted position yet again, and Kahlan knew she was turning away from the cliff and the absence of Denna’s body to face her companions; she was still tense, and Kahlan suspected she would be for quite a long while, but even lying motionless on the bed as she was, Kahlan could tell she was holding herself with characteristic stoicism.

“So...” Cara said, a little too quietly. “...now what?”

*

_It was a simple question with a simple answer. It was also a question that Cara would swiftly come to regret having asked at all._

_Predictably (though no less annoying for being that way), it took over a month to find the new Seeker. A month of Denna’s laughing face dancing before Cara’s mind’s eye every time she so much as blinked, to the point that she began insisting on taking at least the first two watches every night just so she could have a few pitiful hours free from her one-time sister’s mocking smile. A month where, even in death, she was a slave bent to Denna’s will. A month of Kahlan sensing the discomfort in her and using every possible opportunity to displace her frustrations over Richard’s absence by asking if Cara felt like “talking about” whatever was ‘distressing’ her._

_After a month of that, Leo Dane was practically a relief._

_His attraction to her was obvious from the moment they first met (indifferent as he was to the agiel she’d pressed so indecorously against his neck), and only seemed to grow ever more enthusiastic with every effort she made to spurn his clumsy advances. It was distracting, and Cara knew it should have been aggravating, but the soft way he laughed at his own jokes was so very different to Denna’s ruthlessly mocking laughter, even as it continued to reverberating through her head every time she closed her eyes._

_Leo was a bumbling fool, hardly fit to bear the title of Seeker, but he was a welcome reprieve from her dreams, her thoughts, and the visions of Denna that plagued her. Besides, she couldn’t help thinking, he didn’t indulge in the patronising ‘concern’ of the Mother Confessor, and he was far nicer to look at than the wizard._

_Unsurprising as they were, his advances were not entirely undesired, and Cara allowed him to make a fool of himself for her benefit on probably more occasions than she should have. He was a good man, for all his flaws (and there were a great many of them), and she told herself that she was simply allowing him to fixate on her so that the distraction might ease the strain of his forced acclimatisation to the new world he’d been thrown into... a world that, she imagined, must be frightening to one as unaccustomed to it as a common blacksmith._

_Kahlan’s amusement at Leo’s advances (and, in turn, the fact that Cara did not actively spurn them) was, by contrast, most certainly unwanted. Cara knew that she missed Richard, knew that she was latching onto the simmering sentimentality behind Leo’s eyes, and the way Cara was’t instantly rejecting it, because focusing on the two of them gave her something other than Richard to think about. That knowledge, true as it was, did not make the other woman’s infuriating girlishness any less of an aggravation, and Cara was forced to grip her agiels with white-knuckle intensity on more than one occasion after the Mother Confessor’s kind teasing had sparked the urge to inflict violence._

_She did not ‘care’ for Leo. He was convenient, and he was attractive. He was, though she would never admit it to his face, mildly entertaining. And he was, she supposed, not a terrible Seeker (at least, not quite so terrible as Richard could be). But he was not her mate, and he was not her friend. He was the Seeker of Truth, and she was his protector... not because of any feelings she may have been harbouring for him, but because Richard had ordered her to serve Kahlan and Kahlan wished for her to protect Leo._

_If the Mother Confessor couldn’t tell the difference between obligation and feeling, it was her mistake, and Cara would play no part in encouraging her childish amusement._

*

Kahlan remembered Leo, of course. He’d been a good Seeker, and a brave man, and she had come to care deeply for him over the course of that too-long period he’d spent travelling with them in Richard’s place.

Cara, though, had scarcely spared him so much as a glance, much less a conversation. He had tried, and tried hard, but Cara had been characteristically calloused, serving him only as far as her obligation forced her to, and keeping a safe distance from him on every other level. She had held some level of respect for Leo, Kahlan knew, both as a Seeker and as a combatant, but she’d shown no interest in his efforts to befriend her, and had refused to reciprocate (even a little, even out of politeness) his most earnest approaches.

In a way, Kahlan had felt sorry for Leo, though she’d known as well as Cara that they’d had more important things to worry about than making sure their new Seeker was loved and appreciated by all of his companions. And, after a couple of weeks, Leo had accepted that as well. Slowly but surely, he’d stopped his efforts with Cara and focused instead on the others; Kahlan remembered well how he’d taken, towards the latter end of their time together, to staying up far later than he needed to listening to stories and history lessons from Zedd, and Kahlan too had found herself caught up on many occasions in sharing enthusiastic tales with him about Richard’s heroic deeds.

Leo had filled a little of the void left behind in Richard’s absence. Not completely, and Kahlan would have confessed in an instant anyone who claimed it was so, but just enough to keep her heart from breaking every time she thought of him. Kahlan had welcomed and appreciated the real appreciation Leo had held for his predecessor, and Zedd had eagerly relished the opportunity to speak for hours on end into an ear that seemed genuinely interested in listening to him. They had both liked Leo well enough... but, for Cara (her Cara, at least), he was not Richard. He was not her Lord Rahl, and thus her duty to him remained secondary to the promise she’d made to Richard, when he’d left, to protect Kahlan.

It was obvious within a matter of minutes that that particular dynamic was a fundamentally different one in this strange other world.

The first time Cara laughed, it caught Kahlan so completely by surprise that she very nearly fell off the bed. They’d been curled together on the too-small mattress for hours, Cara drifting in and out of half-mumbled silence and Kahlan drifting in and out of half-awake slumber. She’d been listening attentively, of course, and had heard every word, but the fatigue of far too long spent watching over the spelled Mord-Sith was beginning to take its toll again, and, though Kahlan’s mind was sharp, her body had demanded a moment to rest.

She had been jolted awake, in the end, by the unexpected sound of laughter bubbling up from somewhere in Cara, and had felt herself light up from within at the unexpected and unfamiliar sound.

“You should do that more often,” she’d pointed out, unable to keep from smiling.

“Aren’t you supposed to be asleep?” Cara had replied, not missing a beat.

Compliant (and exhausted), Kahlan had acquiesced, dozing semiconsciously on her side for the best part of an hour as Cara and the other world’s Leo exchanged amusing but purposeless pleasantries.

It was only when Cara began thrashing again that Kahlan was jolted from her comfortable mostly-unconsciousness.

She’d kept herself tangled up in Cara’s limbs, head resting on her collarbone, light and dark hair blending seamlessly as if they were designed to fit together just like this, all the while insisting to herself that it was a necessary arrangement for means of practicality. If anything happened to Cara, from the tiniest twitch to the most violent spasm, Kahlan would know, and would be woken by it. The closer they were, she insisted in a bid at silencing the dubious rational corner of her mind, the less time it would take for Kahlan to wake up and put herself into a position to offer whatever Cara needed. It was a logical arrangement, that was all. Practicality, necessity, and responsibility. It was no more and no less than that, she told herself, even as her too-rational mind demanded to know who she was trying to convince.

Much to her hazy relief, Cara’s thrashing was aggressive enough to banish all other thoughts (and internal arguments) from her mind as she woke, and she jolted upright almost before her eyes had fully opened.

“Cara?” she asked groggily.

Not waiting for a response, she gripped Cara’s face in both hands and forced those spell-blind eyes to meet her own in a bid at looking into them and seeing the nature of whatever was happening to her this time. It took less than a moment, as Cara’s mouth fell open, for Kahlan to become acutely aware of the way her chest was heaving with carefully-repressed hunger, and the way her breathing had taken on a decided edge of not-in-danger.

“Cara,” she sighed, a little more cautious.

Somewhat guilty, she willed herself to believe there was at least a chance of Cara’s reaction being borne of danger, even as she felt (for what seemed like the thousandth time in a few very short days) a hot blush creeping up her neck. It was possible, after all; it certainly wouldn’t be the first time the Mord-Sith reacted to a fight in the same way she reacted to certain other kinds of physical exertion.

It was a futile hope, though; already, Cara’s jaw was moving, just inches away from her own, and Kahlan fought to keep from groaning.

“Cara,” she repeated instead. “I’m here.”

Cara leaned in, and the wolfish grin on her face was almost more than Kahlan’s pounding heart could take. “Then what are you waiting for?”

The tone of her voice, and the way her hips lifted in unmistakable invitation were all Kahlan needed to banish for good all possible thoughts of combat or conflict or any other deluded beliefs she’d been clinging to, and she scrambled off the bed as fast as she could.

Apparently, Leo was talented in far more areas than simply making Cara laugh.

*

_Sleeping with Leo had been a grave mistake._

_Cara had known it would be, long before it had ever happened, but she had simply been unable to help herself. The smell of him, the scent of sweat and earth and rain, the heat of the fire, the magnetic pull of their bodies. He’d wanted her, and it had been a very long time since she’d last had the opportunity to scratch that particular itch, and so she’d surrendered to the moment as though it were beyond her control._

_It had been primal and raw, fuelled by passion and naked lust and a primal hunger the likes of which Cara hadn’t felt in some time. It had been pleasurable, and all the more so because she’d made sure that Leo only ever did as much or as little as she wanted him to (and he, in turn, accepted the submissive role she assigned to him with surprising eagerness). For all his undeniable charm, in this, Leo Dane was no more than an instrument. A surprisingly well-tuned one, and one that admittedly satisfied her more times than she had anticipated... but an instrument nonetheless._

_He’d gotten the job done, and admirably, and now Cara had no further need for him._

_Or his jokes. Or his smile. Or his bright eyes._

_If she lived to be a thousand, she would deny the cataclysm of panic that tore through her as he held up that damned red flower with those innocent eyes and that warm smile. She would deny that the calloused way she dismissed him was anything other than inevitable, and that he was more of a fool than she’d originally thought him to be if he’d expected anything else from her._

_She would deny the panic as having any part of her dismissal, because it was absurd to believe such a foolish thing as fear could ever exist in the heart of a Mord-Sith. It was a flower, and he was a man. Between them, they were the most unintimidating combination in all the world; it would be beyond ridiculous to think for even a moment that such things could cause a Mord-Sith to panic._

_And yet, somehow, she was quaking with it._

_Leo, of course, was oblivious. He was accustomed to the way she cast him aside by now, she supposed, and took her at her word with little more than a scowl and a sigh._

_It bothered her, far more than she’d care to admit, that she didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed when he walked away and left her alone. The hurt look on his face (the one he tried so hard to conceal, even as she told him in no uncertain terms that he was mistaken if he thought she cared at all) made her chest constrict in a way that was unnervingly reminiscent of the way Dahlia had made her feel when she had asked after her newborn son and Cara had been unable to tell her that she would never be able to hold him in her arms._

_A man as utterly absurd as Leo Dane should not have been able to stir up such discomfort, such memories, within her. Cara blamed the flower._

_The last thing she needed in that moment, as she stood and struggled to reconcile the pain she felt with the absence of it she knew she was supposed to feel, was Kahlan’s presence stepping up behind her, announced as it was by the telltale hitch of her breath. It was the same hitch that Cara had come to learn meant that the Mother Confessor was about to share her opinion on something, whether it was wanted or not (and they both knew, when Cara was its recipient, it was always not)._

_“You know,” Kahlan said, on cue, and Cara bit back a groan of frustrated aggravation, “I’ve been watching you for weeks, and I can tell you care about him.”_

_It took far more effort than Cara would have liked to remind herself of the fact that driving her agiels up Kahlan’s nose as hard as she could, though it would undeniably make her feel better, was also a direct contradiction to the promise she’d pledged to Richard. Instead, and with more reluctance than she’d ever felt in all her life, she opted to clench her jaw and roll her eyes. It wasn’t nearly enough._

_“You can’t read a Mord-Sith,” she pointed out, keeping her eyes locked tight on the horizon and increasing her pace in the vain hope that Kahlan would, for once in her life, get the message and leave her alone._

_Unsurprisingly (and infuriatingly), the sudden heavy weight of Kahlan’s hand on her arm stopped her. Suppressing the dangerous growl that wanted to tear from her, Cara whirled around, staring with a complicated combination of disgust and horror at the Confessor’s fingers as they dug into the leather and the flesh beneath, and held her forcefully in place. Had it been anyone but Kahlan, she would have pulled her arm out of its socket, and thrown it into the forest without even a moment’s thought._

_Kahlan, being Kahlan, ignored the homicidal glare that was being shot in the general direction of her hand, and tightened her grip. Cara bit down hard on her tongue and willed herself not to swear._

_“The Confessor in me can’t,” Kahlan affirmed, acknowledging Cara’s prior observation. “But the woman can tell you’re not telling the truth.”_

_Cara huffed an annoyed sigh, and turned away._

_“It’s a hard world we live in, Cara,” Kahlan continued, relentless in both making her point and making Cara more furious than she had ever been in all her life. “We don’t get many chances.”_

_Breathing suddenly became difficult, but Cara didn’t want Kahlan to know that. She fixed her gaze on the horizon, on the ground, on the sky, on everything except the man in front and the woman behind, and let her eyes lose their focus. It hurt to listen, hurt to hear, and hurt to think._

_Leo was just a man, she forced herself to remember. Just a man, like the countless others that Cara had had her way with over the course of her life. Who did Kahlan Amnell think she was, imposing imaginary feelings onto Cara and Leo simply because she missed her own Seeker and wanted something else to focus on? Who did Leo Dane think he was, assuming she cared for him even a quarter as much as he cared for her, simply because she’d allowed him to pleasure her?_

_Who were these people, and why did they insist on making her feel things she’d sworn never to let herself feel again?_

_“If you have feelings for Leo,” Kahlan was saying, and Cara struggled to keep from screaming, “you should tell him.”_

_Blessedly, before Cara had the chance to turn around and drive her fist down the Confessor’s throat in the vain hope that silencing her words would also silence the voices in her head, Leo shouted that they’d reached their destination._

_Cara, who had had never been so grateful for the end of a journey in all her life, found herself rooted irremovably to the spot. She watched, paralysed, utterly unable to move as Kahlan rushed off to join Zedd and Leo on top of the hill that stood before them, only remembering far too many moments later exactly who and what and where she was. Tightening her jaw with a resolve that should never have been necessary in the first place, she tore herself away from the thoughts that threatened to drive her mad, and moved to join her waiting companions._

_There would be time for ‘feelings’ and other such sentimental nonsense later. For now, they had a quest to complete._

*

Kahlan had settled on the other side of the room while Cara had enjoyed herself with Leo, and had remained there afterwards. Unlike the vast majority of Cara’s previous couplings, this one seemed to have left her tense and unfulfilled; Kahlan had no idea whether it was because Leo was incapable (though, if the sounds Cara had been making through the duration were any measure to go by, she doubted that) or for some other reason, but there was no mistaking the miserable tension that wracked Cara’s posture in what Kahlan could safely assume was the morning after.

She didn’t say much; what little she did say was steeped in bitterness and what Kahlan recognised from far too much personal experience as an almost desperate desire to be left alone. Was it possible, she wondered, that the promiscuous Mord-Sith might be _regretting_ a night of passion?

If so, the irony wasn’t lost on Kahlan, who had seen her copulate with men, women, and prostitutes alike and not bat so much as an eyelash of shame. But with Leo, a man who had seemed to genuinely care for her, who had made her laugh and smile and show a side of herself that even Kahlan had never seen, not even once, in her own Cara... with _him_ , it seemed to be a different story. In the wake of what was quite possibly the most healthy night of passion she had ever experienced, suddenly Cara was awkward and uncomfortable... and, yes, almost embarrassed by what she’d done. If it wasn’t so tragic, it would have been laughable.

Part of Kahlan wanted to chastise Cara for her misplaced priorities, but the majority of her supposed (in a strange sort of way) that she understood. Cara, for all her bluster and self-assuredness, was afraid. Even from her dissociated spell-displaced distance, Kahlan had seen the way Cara’s face had lit up when she’d laughed; even in the haze of sleepy unconsciousness that she’d been swimming in and out of over the last hour or so, she had heard the genuine near-giddy amusement in the Mord-Sith’s voice, and had known just how rare and precious those things were.

Leo had brought out a side of that world’s Cara that was closer to human than anything Kahlan had ever seen even in her own Cara, and it made sense that the Mord-Sith would be terrified to realise just how completely she’d fallen under the thrall of a stranger in so short a time.

Mord-Sith didn’t feel. Kahlan knew it well, and not just because Cara took every opportunity she could find to reminder her of the fact. Time and time again, she’d learned the lesson that it was just who Cara was, what the Mord-Sith were, everything she had ever been, and that it was too deeply embedded into her heart and soul to ever change. Cara was immune to feeling; despite Richard and Kahlan and Zedd’s combined efforts to break her of her breaking, to free her from the shackles of her Mord-Sith life, feeling was still ever elusive, ever beyond her grasp. It was more than she was capable of.

And yet this Cara, this unknown and unfamiliar version of a woman that Kahlan believed she knew so well, had found herself (albeit against her will) harbouring genuine feelings for Leo, losing herself within him, laughing and smiling and making love. Caring about him, truly and deeply in a way that was undeniable and obvious even to a woman watching across a distance of worlds and realities.

Cara wasn’t tense because she was unfulfilled, Kahlan realised. She was tense because she had been loved, and did not understand what it meant to love in return.

With all her heart, and with a passion that almost choked her, Kahlan prayed that whatever version of herself existed in the other Cara’s world had been kind enough to take her hand and teach her. A Kahlan whose sister had been killed mercifully instead of tortured, a Kahlan who had stood as witness when Cara had sucked up her courage (more courage than she could ever truly realise) and apologised to the very woman whose death she had wrought with her bare hands.

That world’s Kahlan, it seemed, had been given so many countless reasons to care for Cara, to guide her and take care of her and see the potential for goodness within her... so many more reasons than she herself had been, so many more flashes of true potential in a woman whose soul should have been beyond salvation.

If that other Kahlan was worth anything at all – as a Confessor, a woman, a human being – she would do everything within her power to teach Cara what it was to truly feel.

*

_She had tried._

_That was the part that hurt. Despite everything she was, everything she believed, everything that made up her very existence, she had tried. She’d listened to what Kahlan had told her, had felt the heavy weight of the Confessor’s hand on her arm, had heard the genuine empathy in the other woman’s voice, had known and understood the truth in her words... and, rebelling against every last beaten-down inch of herself, she had tried._

_For all her efforts, it hadn’t been enough._

_Dimly, barely conscious, she was aware of the world spinning around her. Of Richard, stumbling half-blind and wholly delirious towards Kahlan, free from the shackles placed on him by the Valley of Perdition. Of Zedd, smiling at his grandson with pride, oblivious to the charred corpse that rested so close to him. Of Kahlan herself, warmed by Richard’s presence, touched and loved and held by him, and yet still so very aware._

_And, of course, Leo. Good Leo. Kind Leo. Leo, with his bright eyes and his hypnotic laugh and his eagerness to please in spite of how she’d treated him. Leo, with his heart and his flowers and his gentle soul._

_Her Leo._

_It was minutes (seconds, hours, days, years) before the others even realised she was there. And, even then, it was Kahlan who made them aware of it, just as it always seemed to be. Cara supposed she should have been thankful to the Mother Confessor, should have been touched that, even in the haze of her obvious giddiness at finally having Richard back in her arms, Kahlan could take even just a moment to think of her. In another world, perhaps, she would have allowed herself to feel grateful. But, in this one, she just wanted them all to leave, to go away, return to their quest without her, because she could not let them see the pain in her eyes, the pain that would kill her._

_“Can you give him the breath of life?”_

_The question almost made her sick._

_With every ounce of strength she had, she climbed to her feet, willing herself to remain there, to stay strong and steady, and not to collapse beneath the weight of grief crushing her lungs._

_“No,” she informed the wizard, unable to tear her gaze from the charred corpse at her feet. “His body is beyond saving.”_

_It was a mark of just how deeply her suffering ran that, when Zedd placed a tentative hand on her shoulder in what she imagined was supposed to be a gesture of support, she didn’t even have enough left within her to wish him dead for it._

_All her years of Mord-Sith training offered nothing in the face of hurt like this. Emotions were weakness, useful only in the breaking of others. Sadness, remorse, love. Hadn’t she told Kahlan, not so long ago, that those feelings were marks of weakness, that they were wrong and foolish and needed to be governed? Hadn’t she offered to teach the Confessor how to do just that? Hadn’t she?_

_Where was her control now?_

_Why couldn’t she govern them within herself? Why was she suddenly so helpless?_

_She could not stem the tide of pain, couldn’t dam the pulsing waves of loss. She had been raised her entire life to block out, to ignore, to dispose of such worthless sentiments. Why couldn’t she block them out now? Why couldn’t she stop the pain? Why had her training deserted her now, in the moment when she needed it more than ever? Why, above all else, had he been taken from her?_

_“Cara...” Kahlan said, and Cara was dimly aware of the Confessor’s presence suddenly on her other side. “Cara, I’m so sorry.”_

_The need to collapse was almost overwhelming; more than anything else in the world right then, Cara wanted to fall into Kahlan’s arms, to let the other woman hold her and remind her that Leo was with the Creator now, to take comfort in letting the Confessor tell her that she had been wrong, that Leo had known how she felt without ever needing to hear the words. She wanted to be weak, and she wanted to be comforted._

_But she would not be either. She could not. For all the alien emotions surging and breaking within her, she would not do that. She would not succumb to the embrace of a Confessor. She would not let herself be comforted by_ Kahlan _._

_Kahlan had caused these feelings in her. It was Kahlan’s fault that she felt this way, that she could no longer harness her training, that she couldn’t divide herself from the pain as she’d been taught to do all her life. It was all Kahlan’s fault._

_Kahlan needed to make it stop._

_“You did this to me,” she whispered, turning to the Mother Confessor and willing her eyes to brim with hate instead of tears. “You did this to me.”_

_Slowly, cautiously, Zedd removed his hand from her shoulder, and Cara sensed him taking a couple of uneasy steps backwards; it was some combination, she imagined, of wanting to let the two women be alone, and wanting to welcome his precious grandson back to the group. Cara didn’t care. She didn’t care about the damned wizard, and right at that moment didn’t particularly care about the Lord Rahl either. She knew it was blasphemy, but she didn’t have enough strength to care._

_All she wanted was for Kahlan to give back the Mord-Sith discipline she had stolen._

_“I’m sorry,” the Confessor was saying. Again and again. She was sorry, she was sorry. Cara didn’t want to hear it._

_“I don’t want to feel,” she whispered, hating how much like a child she sounded. “I don’t want to...”_

_“I know,” Kahlan said, and she had enough tears in her eyes for both of them. “I know. I know, and I’m so sorry, Cara.”_

_“Stop apologising!” Cara rasped, tasting bile. “Stop telling me how sorry you are. Stop talking. Just stop_ talking _.”_

_Kahlan did._

_It didn’t help._

*

Though it was obvious she wanted to, Cara didn’t shed a tear.

Kahlan wanted to be saddened by the fact, to be heartbroken that, even in a moment of such raw loss, Cara was still unable to give herself that small solace. She wanted to feel bad, but she didn’t.

She knew Cara too well to expect a genuine moment of mourning, and was surprised enough by the fact that the Mord-Sith hadn’t vented her grief with her fists or her agiels. Whatever she was feeling just then, however conflicted and confused she had been by what Leo had brought out in her, she was still a Mord-Sith at heart, and tears were further beyond her even than feeling. Kahlan, though she desperately wished that it wasn’t the case, understood too well that it was.

The absence of tears shed didn’t lessen the impact of Cara’s pain, though; Kahlan had returned to her side in the instant she’d screamed Leo’s name, and had pulled her into her arms barely a moment later. At first, Cara had struggled, locked as she had still been in the heat of the battle that had cost Leo his life, but she’d calmed down after a moment or two and, though she couldn’t possibly have known that she was being held, she had allowed herself to melt without protest into the embrace, not even shifting in response to the comforting kisses Kahlan had pressed with feverish intensity to her forehead, her cheeks, her jaw.

It may not have offered Cara any comfort to receive those small gestures, but it had offered Kahlan some to be able to offer them. She could tell by the snatches of bitter-coated sentences, the flashes of not-quite expression, the moments of heavy breathing, that Cara was venting her emotions (in the only way she knew how, with anger and accusation) on the other Mother Confessor, on the version of herself that Kahlan herself had prayed would teach Cara how to feel. She willed her again now, this time to learn, to accept the acid words and understand the depth of pain behind them, to take them and shape them and accept them.

Perhaps she was underestimating the other world’s Kahlan, she mused. It was, after all, just another version of herself, and hadn’t _she_ come to care about Cara on her own? Her Cara was so much more hardened than the one she was watching now; it was simply unfathomable that another Kahlan, however different she may have been (at least, when it came to Cara), would not share her feelings.

Cara, of course, would make it just as difficult for her in any world, and Kahlan had smiled tragically at the bitterness that spilled from the Mord-Sith’s mouth. Cara was like an animal, and it was an animal’s first instinct (and a Mord-Sith’s more even than that) to lash out when it was wounded; as difficult as it was to watch – and even more so, she imagined, to stand stoically idle and receive – it was simply who and what Cara was. A wild, unfettered, dangerous animal. A caged beast who didn’t understand human emotion and who threatened with violence anyone who would dare try and teach it to her.

Given what had happened to Leo, Kahlan supposed she could understand the rationale behind Cara’s way of living. She would have given anything to spare Cara the hurt she saw flashing and flickering across her face like flames in a dying fire. If it meant seeing her become a shell of a human being once more, emotionless and dead inside as all true Mord-Sith were, at least it would keep her free of all of this. At least it would keep her safe from the loss, from the heartbreak, from the grief and the mourning and the tears she would never shed. It may have been a step backwards, but at least it would have protected her from all those things that she – for all her training and all her endurance – was not ready for.

Kahlan knew what loss felt like. She’d suffered through it more times than she could count in her lifetime, and twice with her sister alone. She knew pain, she knew bereavement, and she knew grief. Cara had been broken of those feelings when she was a child; with Leo, it seemed, that world’s Cara had just tickled the edges of feeling for the first time since she was a little girl. For the first time, she had touched on something that could have been pure and good and innocent and true... and, in a single moment, before she’d even fully been able to grasp the basest concept of what it was, she had seen it torn away from her. It wasn’t fair.

Suddenly, it didn’t matter that Cara couldn’t shed a tear, because Kahlan was shedding them all. The tears that Cara could not shed, the tears that she herself had never really needed to. Perhaps even the very same tears that her other self was shedding as well. Tears enough for everyone, in all possible worlds.

In her arms, Cara twisted, every inch of her threatening to break apart at the seams. “I do care about you.”

Kahlan feathered another useless kiss over her brow. “He knows,” she breathed, wishing it could be true. “He knows, Cara.”

The moment was over in less than a heartbeat, and that broke Kahlan’s heart more than anything else. She felt the way Cara tensed again, body going rigid with a determination that bled over into Kahlan as well, and she knew in the instant before it happened that she would be pulling away. Her arms ached, almost muscle-deep, at the loss of contact as the Mord-Sith fell back against the pillows once more as though the moment had never happened.

“You’re going to need this back,” she said, in a voice that was suddenly harder than flint. “We have a quest to get back to.”

If the shift in her posture and the ice in her tone were anything to go by, Kahlan suspected that it would be a very long time before Cara allowed herself to indulge in the weakness of feeling again, if she ever did at all. She could feel, though their bodies were no longer touching, the way Cara was retreating into herself, losing herself amid the memories of her training, her breaking, the tortures she’d endured throughout her life. She was reverting, forcing the trauma of emotion into a darkened and long-forgotten corner, just as she had for the sake of survival when she was a child, never to be seen again. 

The tragedy, the part that stole Kahlan’s breath and made the tears flow anew, was the fact that she couldn’t even blame Cara for it. Given the choice, she suspected she might have done exactly the same thing herself.


	25. Chapter 25

_“I’m worried about her.”_

_Cara’s eyes snapped open; she hadn’t been sleeping (not really) but, even if she had been, the not-soft-enough sounds of her companions’ voices would have been enough to wake her. They had been travelling together for more months than she could count by this point, and the Seeker and his Confessor still didn’t realise that there wasn’t a whisper in all the Midlands quiet enough to not reach the ear of a Mord-Sith; if it wasn’t so pitiful, their ignorance would have been amusing._

_“Don’t be.” Richard was smiling, she could tell. “She’s fine.”_

_Kahlan, unsurprisingly, was neither smiling nor pacified. “I’m not so sure she is.”_

_The gusty sigh that followed (melodramatic, really) could have come from either one of them. Richard had a habit of sounding like a hysterical woman when he was moody, and Kahlan was just as prone to sound like an arrogant male when she was. However, it was the Seeker who spoke next, and so Cara allowed herself to assume that the sound must have, in this case, issued from him._

_“Zedd checked her three times. He said there’s no trace of the baneling magic left in her. There’s nothing to worry about, Kahlan, she’s clean.”_

_“I know that, Richard,” Kahlan snapped, sounding irrationally irritable, even by her standards. “I didn’t say anything about dark magic, and I didn’t say anything about her still being a baneling. I just said I’m worried about her.”_

_Richard exhaled; it was a thoughtful-sounding noise, though Cara could tell (with no small amount of gratitude) that he still wasn’t taking Kahlan’s concerns too seriously. He was humouring her, of course, because he loved her, but he clearly wasn’t seeing any of the things that Kahlan apparently was, and he didn’t seem the least bit worried about Cara. For her part, the Mord-Sith was relieved; she was perfectly fine, and did not need the Seeker or his Confessor fussing over her like a mewling infant. Richard was right; there was nothing to worry about, and it was a waste of Kahlan’s resources to feel as if there was._

_“I never thought I’d see the day,” Richard observed, gently teasing, “that you’d ever admit to being worried about Cara.”_

_In the uneasy silence that followed, Cara knew that Kahlan was considering his words; it had been very a long time since Cara had felt anything less than the purest respect (she refused to call it ‘affection’, however close to the mark it was) for the Mother Confessor, but she would never let herself forget the fact that Kahlan had far more to forgive her for than she had to forgive in kind._

_Kahlan was a Confessor, and that in itself was all the reason Cara needed to be ashamed of how she felt about the woman; Mord-Sith were trained to hate Confessors, to hate them more than anything else in the world, and it was the greatest humiliation Cara could think of to feel anything other than disdain for one. In Kahlan’s case, though, the hatred she felt (even before they had necessarily come together in service to Richard) ran far deeper than the clashes between their people. The depth of hatred Kahlan had felt, knowing as they all did what Cara had done to her family, must have been infinitely more difficult to overcome than her own, or anything else Cara could conceive._

_She would never admit it to another soul (least of all Kahlan herself) but, after so long in the other woman’s company, after so many months enduring and suffering her patronising Confessor’s invasiveness, hearing her judging the least little things, being forced to listen as she extolled the virtues of feeling and compassion... this unguarded flash of genuine worry on Kahlan’s part almost_ meant _something. It was frightening._

_“She’s changed,” Kahlan said, after a pause that seemed to stretch on forever. “There’s something new in her. Since Leo...” she trailed off, clearly at war with herself, and Cara felt her chest constrict despite her best efforts to ignore the grief welling up like blood in the open wound within her. “Since Leo, she’s...”_

_“I know,” Richard replied, sympathy mingling with what sounded oddly like pride._

_“Richard,” Kahlan said, and the urgency behind the words caught Cara as much by surprise as she was sure they’d probably caught the Seeker. “I could_ read _her.”_

_“What?” Richard asked, the word a perfect echo to Cara’s own sudden panic-stricken thoughts._

_Cara was more than glad that the Seeker had thought to ask the question, because she wanted answers. Confessors could not read Mord-Sith. It had been that way as long as she could remember, and she had often taken a great deal of comfort from the knowledge that, whatever foolish sentiments Kahlan tried to inflict upon her, she could never truly know how Cara felt about them. It gave her no small amount of solace to know that, however conflicted and confused her own thoughts became, however difficult it became for her to master the unwanted tumult that poured through and from her, more and more with each passing day, she was at least safe from Kahlan’s scrutiny. If that was no longer true, if she had somehow allowed herself to become an open book, readable even to a Confessor... truly, she was no longer Mord-Sith._

_“When she was a baneling,” Kahlan elaborated, and Cara fought to keep from whining. “When she thought she was dying... I could read her.”_

_Had she not been so wary of revealing herself to them, Cara would have sat bolt upright at that revelation; more than anything in the world just then, she wanted to see Kahlan’s face, to swallow down the sickening pity she was sure would be painting itself across her features, to choke on her sympathy and her sorrow until she found herself back in the Underworld again, where she would be safe from all these things._

_It had been the weakest moment of Cara’s life. The helplessness, the humiliation, the ever-present and irrepressible hunger. She had, in those final moments, ached for the embrace of death, and she hadn’t even cared that it would bring with it an eternity of torment at the hands of the Keeper and Darken Rahl. She had just wanted to see those things end, to be finally free from the feelings that had taken her by the throat and forced her to bow to their whim. She had wanted it to be over._

_“What do you mean?” Richard was asking._

_Cara didn’t want to know. She couldn’t hear this. She didn’t have the strength to hear Kahlan praising her for being weak._

_“What I saw in her eyes...” Kahlan said, sounding almost awestruck by the mere thought of it; the rise and fall of emotion in her voice made Cara feel ill. “Richard, I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.”_

_Richard didn’t say anything; Cara wondered if he perhaps didn’t know what to say. She prayed that he didn’t, that he would instead tell Kahlan to go to bed and take over her watch, and that neither of them would ever speak of this again._

_It was bad enough that Cara had been weak enough to feel such unforgivable helplessness in the first place, but to know that her weakness had been witnessed? To know that Kahlan had looked into her soul in that moment and seen everything? Not just suspected it, as she had with Leo, or presumed (with Confessor’s arrogance and no proof) to know everything about her as she had so many nights when Cara had woken from evocative dreams about her sisters, but truly_ seen _it? Seen everything, all that that she felt, all that she was? Seen_ her _? It was too much to bear._

_“She’s changed,” Kahlan repeated thoughtfully. “She’s not... it’s not about loyalty anymore. She’s not here because you’re the Lord Rahl. She’s here because she wants to be here. Because she wants to be with us.”_

_“We’ve been good to her,” Richard said, and Cara knew it to be true. “Not many would give her a second chance like we did.”_

_“It’s not just that, though,” Kahlan countered. “She needs us, and not just because she doesn’t have anyone else. She... Richard, if I didn’t know better, I’d say she was frightened.”_

_“Of what?” Richard asked, a frown in his voice. Cara was thankful for his confusion; it was safer than the truth. “She’s among friends.”_

_“That’s why,” Kahlan told him, lowering her voice even more than she already had. “She’s here because she wants to be, because she cares about u—” She couldn’t quite bring herself to say ‘us’, she seemed, and Cara stifled a self-satisfied chuckle at that. “—about you.”_

_Cara was very tempted to stand up then, even if it meant revealing that she’d been awake and listening to the entire conversation. She couldn’t hear this, and she certainly couldn’t allow Richard to hear it. He was the Lord Rahl, and that was all he needed to know about why she remained at his side. Perhaps she couldn’t conceal the truth of herself from the Mother Confessor anymore, but that was no reason to let her innermost thoughts be exposed to Richard as well._

_Kahlan Amnell didn’t know what she was talking about, Cara’s pride insisted with characteristic stubbornness. She was mistaken, just as Leo had been. Cara no more cared about Richard (beyond her obligations as a Mord-Sith to the Lord rahl) than she had cared about his predecessor, and she no more cared for Kahlan now than she had done when they had first started travelling together, the haze of mutual hatred shrouded by grudging and necessary acceptance. To believe otherwise was foolish, and it was absurd and unjust for Kahlan to talk of such things with Richard._

_They weren’t true. It was blasphemy. It was... it..._

_“It frightens her,” Kahlan was saying, and Cara’s fists clenched painfully at her sides. “She’s a Mord-Sith, Richard. She’s been trained all her life not to feel anything for anyone. All she knows is duty and honour. She doesn’t know how to feel, and she doesn’t know what to do with what she’s feeling now. She’s confused, and she’s lost, and she’s afraid.”_

_A low rumble left Richard’s throat, deep and masculine. “You got all that by reading her when she was a baneling?”_

_Coughing uncomfortably, Kahlan said nothing, and Cara felt her cheeks flame with indignation. No, she realised. Kahlan had not ‘got’ all that simply from one weak moment. These things had been blossoming within her far longer than the last few days, and it would take a Confessor far more powerful than Kahlan Amnell to have seen it all with such clarity in one fleeting moment of readability. Cara herself wasn’t even convinced that any of these things - these_ feelings _– were real at all, and yet Kahlan spoke of them as though she knew the deepest secrets of Cara’s mind (her_ heart _, though she would never call it that) better even than she herself did. It was more than the aftermath of her death and resurrection, and so much more than a Confessor reading the near-death thoughts of a condemned baneling._

_“I’ve been watching her,” Kahlan admitted, so quiet that even Cara with her perfect hearing needed to strain to hear it._

_“Kahlan...” Richard started, gentle but firm._

_“I know,” Kahlan replied, and Cara fought to steady her breathing and calm the killer instinct rising up within her like an animal freed from its cage. “I know, I shouldn’t, I know it’s wrong. I know. But she’s changed so much, Richard. There’s so much more to her now than there was when she... when I almost confessed her at Stowcroft. She’s become—”_

_“—a friend,” Richard offered, very quietly._

_Cara didn’t need to see the two of them to know that Kahlan was nodding, and the fact caused her stomach to give another violent lurch._

_They weren’t friends. They were travelling companions, no more and no less, bound together by a mutual respect for Richard and the need to protect him from those who would do him harm (and, more often than not, from himself as well). They were nothing alike, and they certainly weren’t friends. Confessors and Mord-Sith did not become ‘friends’, no matter what circumstances happened to drive them together._

_And besides, Cara did not need a ‘friend’. She had herself._

_Suddenly no longer caring whether her companions would be angered by her eavesdropping, she lurched to her feet (far more unsteady than she would have liked, or would admit). It didn’t matter that it was the middle of the night, didn’t matter that she was about to interrupt a private conversation, didn’t matter that it was worse than impolite for her to show her face now. She couldn’t listen any more, couldn’t pretend any more. She couldn’t think. She needed to get away from them, their words, their voices, their feelings, all of them. She needed to get away, right now._

_“I’m going hunting,” she growled at the tree-shrouded silhouettes that marked her companions, and her voice was more deathlike than it had ever been when she was a baneling._

_Ignoring their protests, she stormed past them, shoving one or the other (or possibly both) out of the way when they didn’t move fast enough, and vanished into the forest._

*

The announcement caught Kahlan by surprise. Cara had been swimming deep in one of her silent periods, and her breathing had been slow and steady enough that the Mother Confessor had just assumed she was sleeping, even as she’d known better than to expect that it would last. Still, when Cara did finally speak, the words themselves came so completely without pre-emption that Kahlan was taken completely off-guard by them.

It shouldn’t have surprised her in the least that Cara had made a point of using the transparent excuse of ‘going hunting’ to cover the tracks of her apparent discomfort. That particular quirk was one that Kahlan was already intimately familiar with, thanks to her own Cara.

She supposed it was just too easy for a Mord-Sith simply to require some time alone, or to state that she needed to take a walk or clear her head or get some fresh air. No, it was always ‘hunting’, as though the pretence of taking a life (even the life of an unsuspecting rabbit) somehow made the need for solitude more worthwhile. As though making a show of tracking a meal somehow made it more honourable.

Whenever it happened (admittedly not as often as she would have expected), Kahlan always found herself overwhelmed by the urge to follow and try to explain to Cara all the reasons why there was no shame in admitting that she just needed a moment to be by herself. For all the progress the Mord-Sith had made in their company, some habits remained more difficult to break than others, and the need to present a constant illusion of value (even in something as pure and innocent as solitude) was one that it seemed even the other world’s Cara could not be broken of.

There was something reassuring in the rare flash of familiarity. More and more, as she watched Cara experiencing events so different to the ones that she herself remembered living through, Kahlan had grown increasingly aware of how unlike her Cara this other version was, and even more aware of just how little she knew of them both.

Her Cara, broken and rough at the edges, was still hardened despite more than a year in the company of the Seeker and his kind-hearted retinue; she had never allowed herself to indulge in Leo’s softer feelings, and Kahlan couldn’t fathom her being lost in dreams (good or bad, or merely embarrassing) about her former sisters.

She was a Cara distanced from the life that had once been all she knew, uninfluenced and unaffected despite having spent so long strangled by it... and yet the scars she bore from that corner of her existence were so fundamental that a thousand healing spells would never erase them. The life of a Mord-Sith was all Cara knew, and it was a life entirely void of humanity. Though she had now carved the phantom of that life from within her, the void still remained where it had once been.

The other Cara was easier, quieter in a lot of ways. There was very little of what Kahlan had seen in Dahlia that could be described as gentle, but it was close enough to make a difference, and the woman had (for all her countless flaws) been a permanent enough presence for such an important part of Cara’s life that sentiment was no longer an alien concept to either of them.

Kahlan’s Cara had been broken of everything but pain, trained alone and hardened by her solitude; the other world’s Cara had been given the gift of a kindred spirit, a mate to share the burden of those early tortures. And, though that Cara was every bit as scarred and damaged and shattered as Kahlan’s own Cara, she was also much more accepting of the fact, and much more aware of how to deal with it.

Kahlan couldn’t imagine her Cara doing many of the things she’d seen her partake of through the other Cara’s eyes, and yet moments like this – a simple harshly-muttered ‘I’m going hunting’ – was enough to remind her beyond all shadow of doubt that they were, beneath all their differences, the same person. For all the things that were so incomprehensibly changed, all the darkness and light that flickered between and across and through them both, they were both Cara. The purest essence, the innocent little girl, the bruised soul. They were all the same. Cara.

Contrary to the initial outburst, Kahlan wasn’t surprised in the least when Cara began to twitch and thrash again. In fact, she would have been considerably more worried if she’d simply remained placid, and it was with something of a resigned sigh that Kahlan shifted their positions again.

Moving swiftly, to pre-empt any attempt Cara might make to hurt herself, she sat upright, unceremoniously hauling Cara up into a mirroring position, still circled in her arms. As numerous as the differences between the two versions of Cara were, Kahlan knew perfectly well that there was only one method any version of the Mord-Sith would ever use to vent her frustrations (whatever those frustrations were, and she was frankly more than a little baffled by what had so affected her in this particular instance).

Kahlan remembered too vividly the way Cara had been assaulting a tree when she’d found her after Zedd’s announcement, recalled the way she would have continued to drive her fists through the unyielding wood until there was nothing left of her (though the tree, of course, would still be standing and laughing at her). She recalled Cara’s reluctance to let her clean the damage to her hands, recalled the way she’d visibly had to fight to keep from picking a fight even with the Mother Confessor. And she knew that these things were far from uncommon when the Mord-Sith and their particular coping methods were concerned. No doubt, whatever it was that had bothered her to the point of needing to ‘hunt’, this Cara would be doing exactly the same.

“Stop being a child,” Kahlan said, gently chiding, even as she held Cara’s arms down. “Whatever they did to upset you, I’m sure they didn’t mean it, so just calm down.”

Cara growled, but it was almost kittenish next to the unfettered fury that had come with so many of her previous altercations. If she hadn’t been so reflexively afraid of being struck for daring to take amusement at Cara’s expense, Kahlan would have laughed aloud at how close to sweetness the sound actually was.

“Fools,” Cara muttered under her breath, and the hushed lowness of her voice told Kahlan that it was quite probably the middle of the night. “Both of them, fools.”

“I’m sure we are,” Kahlan said easily, manoeuvring herself behind the other woman so she could tighten the grip she had on her arms; she didn’t need to know the context of Cara’s irritation to know that she and Richard had to be the source of it. “I’m sure Richard and I, and probably Zedd too, are very foolish. Now, would you please calm down and go back to bed before you wake half the forest with your needless violence?”

Unsurprisingly, though no less amusingly, Cara’s only response was another dangerous growl and a redoubling of her efforts to break free.

“This isn’t helping anyone,” Kahlan told her, and wondered why she couldn’t be just as forthright when Cara was awake and aware. “You’re just going to exhaust yourself, and then whose fault will it be when Richard has no-one to watch his back the next time he gets himself attacked?”

Cara’s features darkened like a thundercloud, but her efforts stilled for a moment. She was panting, Kahlan realised, feeling vividly the muscles of Cara’s back and shoulders as they heaved against her chest.

“I am not their pet,” she snarled. “I am not their... _friend_.”

The word caused Kahlan to flinch despite herself, knowing as she did how Cara struggled with that concept. This Cara, it seemed, had just as much trouble with it as her own Cara did, and the realisation struck her with simultaneous relief and sorrow. After all that Dahlia had done to her, for all the ways she’d shaped her, still, this was beyond her. Even there.

“They’re not asking you to be your friend,” she informed Cara, far more quietly than she either needed or wanted to. “But you can’t stop them caring about you.”

“I have a duty,” Cara went on, voice still low, grating like rusted steel. “Why can’t they understand that? Why must there always be _feelings_? Why must there be some foolish sentiment to everything? It’s never companionship with them – always friendship. Always _feeling_.” She went rigid in Kahlan’s arms, and Kahlan didn’t need her Confessor’s insight to know that she was trying to uproot with her bare hands whatever unfortunate plant she’d found. “They don’t know the first thing about me! They’re fools! Stupid, nostalgic, sentimental fools. Why is it so impossible for them to simply accept that Mord-Sith do not feel?”

“You do feel, Cara,” Kahlan said gently. “You can deny it all you want, but we’ve all seen it. You feel. And you care.”

Apparently, the truth behind the words struck Cara square in the chest in the same instant as Kahlan uttered them, because she lurched out of Kahlan’s arms and resumed her blind assault on the air.

“It’s weakness!” she snarled, and Kahlan was forced to dodge a flailing fist.

“Cara!” she shouted, a little louder than was strictly necessary, and caught Cara’s wrists in her hands. “Cara, stop it. Stop it now.”

To her surprise, Cara did as she was told.

“Good,” Kahlan managed, breathless with the dual effects of her disbelief and her prior exertions. “Now just... calm down. All right? For my sake as much as yours.”

Cara bowed her head. For less than a heartbeat, Kahlan allowed herself to believe it was a gesture of acceptance, of acquiescence to her request, of kindness towards the woman who had been everything to her, whether she was aware of it or not. Though she knew it was silly, she allowed herself to believe that the stillness was Cara’s gift to her.

The moment lasted just as long as it took for Cara to close her eyes, straighten her posture, and breathe Richard’s name.

*

_“Cara.”_

_There was no chastisement in the name, no threat of discipline, and Richard’s rugged (if characteristic) empathy only made Cara feel worse than she already did._

_“I was hunting,” she offered up in defence of herself._

_It was obvious, of course, that he knew her better by now than to believe such an absurd lie (there was, after all, no game within ten leagues), but she would not allow him to know the truth of it. Not him. Not the Lord Rahl. Not_ Richard _._

_“Cara.”_

_She lowered her head, the curtain of her hair obscuring her face, but she refused to apologise. Richard, unlike his predecessor, didn’t seem to mind the lack of respect in that particular gesture, at least not when it came to moments like this, and Cara felt her chest tighten with indignant anger. Why couldn’t he raise his voice at her? Why couldn’t he shout at her, strike her down, threaten her with torture? Why couldn’t he eke out discipline for her dishonesty? Why couldn’t he be the Lord Rahl for once in his pitiful existence?_

_“You shouldn’t eavesdrop,” he said simply, and Cara rolled her eyes; if this was his attempt at being an authority figure, she’d almost prefer the silence. “If we’d thought for a moment you were listening, we’d never have said any of those things about you.”_

_“But you would still have believed them,” she pointed out softly; the need for violence, and the fire sparking in her blood (all the more fiercely for having been interrupted) made her bolder than usual in his presence. “You would still have felt those things, even if you hadn’t said them. The Mother Confessor—”_

_“Kahlan,” Richard corrected gently._

_“—would still believe me to be her ‘friend’,” Cara went on, spitting the word out as though it were poison. “I’m not her friend, Richard, and she’s not mine. We serve you together. It’s nothing more or less than that.”_

_“I don’t think you believe that,” he said, still speaking quietly._

_In a single large stride, he closed what little space existed between them and clapped a firm hand on her shoulder; had he been anyone else, he would have found that hand removed by force in less than a heartbeat... but Cara couldn’t protect the Lord Rahl and dismember him at the same time, and so she grudgingly allowed the gesture._

_“I think,” he was saying, and the fact that he was still talking made her seriously reconsider her prior decision, “you’re just afraid to admit you care about us.”_

_“You only think that,” Cara informed him icily, “because Kahlan told you that was the case, and you believe everything she says.”_

_Richard made a sound that, had it been a fraction louder, might almost have been a growl. “I believe it,” he pointed out coarsely, “because I believe in you.”_

_The words cut far more deeply than Cara had expected, and she steadied herself against the tree that had endured so much of her wrath already. She kept her gaze on the ground, not willing to look up and see the satisfaction that was no doubt creeping across Richard’s features at the knowledge that he’d thrown her, and forced her breathing to steady itself._

_This was unacceptable. She should not be allowing such a pitiful display in the presence of Richard – in the presence of_ Lord Rahl _. It was inexcusable. She forced herself to take a deep breath, holding it in for just long enough to make her lungs cry out, before letting it out slowly._

_“Maybe you shouldn’t,” she said._

_He laughed at that, and the sound only served to set her even more on edge than she already was._

_“I’m sure I shouldn't,” he affirmed easily. “You’re not exactly the easiest person to have faith in, Cara. But that doesn’t change the fact that I have it anyway. And so does Kahlan.”_

_Again, Kahlan. Always Kahlan. Cara didn’t know why the Mother Confessor’s name filled her with such sick dread, or why she longed so often to forget she’d ever heard it spoken aloud, but it did. It did, a thousand times over, more and more with each repetition of each syllable, and more than ever when it fell from Richard’s lips._

_She knew that the Seeker would be able to see those traitorous thoughts within her, even if she didn’t speak them aloud, just as she knew that he would see without even having to look just how uncomfortable the name of his precious Confessor made her. She knew, also, that he would be saddened by the fact, and that cut more deeply than anything else._

_It made her feel as though she was somehow betraying him, as though her desire not to hear the name ‘Kahlan Amnell’ was somehow a mark of rebellion against the Lord Rahl’s desires... or, worse, a mark of rebellion against_ Richard _. He who had treated her with such respect, who had allowed her to serve him, who had welcomed her when nobody else had. He, who she loved as the Lord Rahl, who she respected as the Seeker. He, who loved the Mother Confessor, and she who felt physically sick just to hear her name spoken aloud._

_She wished she could take back the feeling, even though she would never act on it, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t stop herself feeling it, couldn’t stop herself hating the name, even as she knew it was only so because she could not hate the bearer of it. Worse, though, she couldn’t deny that those feelings existed. If she tried, she knew, it would only make Richard sadder still to think that she wasn’t allowing herself to be honest with him. She was trapped._

_“The Mother Confessor,” she said at last, seeking out the closest thing to middle ground that she could find in this midnight-hazed world of swirling uncertainty, “would be better advised to seek out her friendship somewhere else. I can’t give her what she wants from me, Richard, and I can’t be what she wants me to.”_

_Even in the barely-existent light, she could see the way Richard’s eyes softened at that, as though by voicing her thoughts she had somehow played into his hands. As though he was seeing exactly what he wanted to see, as though she’d given him everything he wanted without even realising it._

_She would never understand him, she decided, and the realisation sent a pang of unfamiliar sensation pulsing through her, raw as an exposed nerve and uncomfortable enough to make her tighten her grip against the rough bark of the tree lest she lose her footing and topple over._

_“She doesn’t want anything from you,” Richard was saying, and Cara didn’t understand. “Cara, Kahlan doesn’t care about you because she expects you to care about her in return. She doesn’t think of you as a friend because she wants, or expects, you to feel the same way. Just because she cares... Cara, you’re not_ obligated _to care back. It’s not a_ duty _. Kahlan would never demand that from you, or anything else.” He sighed, and Cara had no idea whether it was her inability to comprehend what he was saying that so frustrated him, or the truth of the words. “She knows you can’t. She knows it’s more than you can do to let yourself feel things. After Leo—”_

_“Don’t!” she shouted, sounding tortured and hating herself for it._

_With more effort than she’d ever admit to, she forced her posture to regain its characteristic strength, holding herself upright despite her body’s best efforts to upturn her, and stepping carefully away from the tree. When she didn’t collapse beneath the first step, she took a second, standing before him as proud and tall as she was able._

_“Richard,” she said, speaking slowly and carefully, and not just because too much of her was engaged in staying on her feet. “This has nothing to do with Leo, and it has nothing to do with whatever ‘feelings’ Kahlan imagines I might have had for him. I’m a Mord-Sith. We’re not capable of such things.”_

_“You can keep saying it,” Richard sighed, sickeningly empathetic, “but you can’t make it true. You don’t_ want _to feel. You’re afraid of it.”_

_Cara felt her jaw clench._

_“Stop quoting Kahlan!” she roared before she could stop herself, fists balling over the handles of her agiels as she struggled to keep from lashing out at him with them._

_As much to her aggravation as it was to her disappointment, Richard was unfazed by her outburst, and closed his fingers over the jutting bone of her shoulder. The contact made her queasy, and, had it been anyone but Richard, she would have pulled away and broken his nose just for touching her. But it was Richard, and so she took it, as she had always taken everything the Lord Rahl deigned to give her._

_“I’m quoting her because she’s right,” he said softly. “Cara, Kahlan has a thousand reasons to want you dead. We both know it’s a miracle she hasn’t confessed you three times already. But she hasn’t, and she hasn’t because she’s come to respect you.” For a moment, he let that hang on the air, and Cara prayed it would be all. But it wasn’t. “And not just that, either. She’s come to care about you, too. We all have, but Kahlan especially. And I...”_

_He closed his eyes, visibly frustrated, and Cara almost wished she could stop all of this if only it would make him feel less conflicted. It was her duty to serve him; in failing to grasp what he was saying, she was failing in her duty._

_“I can’t order you to appreciate what that means,” he went on after a moment. “I can’t order you to understand how precious it is, or how blessed you are to have her wanting your friendship, even if you can’t give yours in return. I can’t order you to do anything, Cara... but I can tell you that Kahlan Amnell is a woman worthy of your appreciation. Not because she’s the woman I love, and not because she’s the Mother Confessor. Because she’s_ Kahlan _.”_

_“I know,” Cara whispered._

_She did. That was why it hurt._

_Unable to keep facing him, even without the need to actually meet his eye, she turned around, delivering another (unnecessarily violent) blow to the tree that had been so polite in holding her upright until that point. The dull pain that pulsed through her fingers, right down to the bone, did little to assuage the tumult of discomfort that was rippling like quicksand within her, and so she struck the tree again. And then again, and again, until she felt Richard hauling her back with a strength she knew it was paining him deeply to have to use on one of his so-called friends._

_“Cara,” he offered, soft but with determination, slowly letting his hand drop from her shoulder as soon as she let him know that she wouldn’t return to the tree as soon as he did so. “If you really need to punch something, take a shot at me instead. I can defend myself, the poor tree can’t.”_

_Rolling her eyes again, Cara fisted her agiels. “As much as I’d like to render you unconscious,” she said, and meant it, “you’re still the Lord Rahl, and it’s still my sworn duty to protect you. If I ‘took a shot’ at you... you would certainly not be protected.”_

_She could tell by the sparkle in his dark-shrouded eyes that he’d been expecting that, and was amused by it. She wasn’t entirely sure whether to be proud of that or not._

_“So spar me instead,” he said, drawing the Sword of Truth with practiced ease and the familiar ring of rending steel._

_“Mord-Sith don’t spar,” she told him, without thinking, and was wholly unprepared for the explosion of white-hot pain that seared through her heart like a heated blade._

_For a fraction of a second, it wasn’t Richard standing before her, but Leo. His face damp with the sweat of exertion, his chest bare and perfectly angled in the glinting sunlight, the Sword of Truth resting so much easier in his hand than it ever had in Richard’s (though she would never tell Richard that). For less than a heartbeat, she felt a flash of bitterness that stole her breath, and her treacherous heart screamed out that it should have been Leo in Richard’s place now._

_Even though it was Richard she was sworn to serve. Even if his absence would have meant that she had failed in her duty to protect him, even if it meant the worst had happened, that he was dead and the Mother Confessor bereaved and the wizard mourning his grandson... if it also meant she would see Leo’s face smiling down at her instead of Richard’s, laughing as he refused to take seriously her words about sparring, then she would take it, gladly and without remorse._

_It marked her as worse than a traitor, she knew, a crime punishable by death (though she knew Richard well enough to know that he would never allow her execution to be carried out for a few treasonous thoughts), and she wished there was enough left within her to feel shame and humiliation for failing so spectacularly in her sworn duty. She wished she could hate herself, wish herself dead, beg for punishment... but she could not. All her wishes and pleas were taken up by Leo._

_“Cara?” Richard asked, puzzlement mingling with concern; he could tell there was something wrong, but she knew he couldn’t figure out what it was._

_“I won’t spar you,” she said, voice so thick she was sure she would choke on it._

_Suddenly, he was gripping her by the arms, holding her steady in a desperate attempt at keeping her from collapsing, and she hated him for taking it upon himself to look after her like this, and hated herself so much more for giving him a reason to do so._

_“Cara,” he said again, quieter._

_“You people,” she rasped, feeling her eyes slide closed even as she broke free from his grasp and turned away once more. “You make me weak. You make me so very weak.”_

*

“Oh, Cara...” Kahlan sighed, fighting back a fresh wave of tears. “Why are you always so obsessed with weakness?”

Naturally, there was no answer from the motionless Mord-Sith, but Kahlan rather suspected she knew what it would have been anyway.

It was the only thing she knew. Strength. Weakness. Power or the lack of it. There was nothing else. It had been her life for so long that the concept was almost as precious to her as a favourite stuffed animal was to a child. She needed it, because it was the only thing she had to make the increasingly upside-down world make sense. Without the Mord-Sith paradigms of strength and weakness, of power versus feeling, Cara would have nothing but her own moral conscience to guide her... and Kahlan knew that the idea of relying on her blossoming humanity must be a source of great terror to a woman like Cara. She could take on an entire D’Haran army single-handedly, but she could not trust her own heart.

Cara reached reflexively for her agiels, fists clenching and unclenching in spasmodic rhythm as she sought the comforting pain of the weapons; without even thinking about it, Kahlan leaned across to pull the rods from their sheaths and take them away before Cara could touch them.

Pain, expected but no less shattering for being that way, tore through every inch of her at the contact. A tortured gasp wrenched from her throat before she could even try to silence it, dissolving almost instantly into a series of choking half-whimpers. Though she had been struck with agiels before, and though she’d endured the lash of them on more than one occasion (and, indeed, by Cara’s hand as well), the staggering weight of the pure undiluted pain never failed to steal the air from her lungs and drive her with ever-increasing urgency towards oblivion.

It was only through sheer force of will that Kahlan was able to keep herself conscious for the scant handful of seconds it took to shift the agiels even just a short distance away (just enough to be safely out of Cara’s reach), and when they clattered from her numb fingers to the floor, the relief that flooded in to replace the pain (physical and psychological in equal measure) was almost tangible.

“The things I do for you...” she managed, breathless, rolling her eyes at Cara.

The Mord-Sith, of course, was less than grateful for the gesture, and Kahlan watched with shaky bemusement as her fingers continued to grope blindly for agiels that weren’t there. Silently, Kahlan berated herself for not having taken the rods away sooner; it had been nearly three days, and she’d only now come to realise that removing Cara’s weapons from her belt would have rendered her unable to keep touching them.

“I spared him because it was expected of me,” Cara insisted, the words coming from nowhere; agiels forgotten already, Kahlan frowned expectantly. “Zedd would have been heartbroken if I’d killed his brother, and you would have sent me away. I can hardly be expected to protect you if I’m outcast, Richard.”

Kahlan chuckled wanly at that hollow assertion; she remembered the incident well, of course, Cara having been killed in a scuffle and opting to take the Keeper’s bargain (life as a baneling, doomed to take a life every day for each of her own), and the vision of what would have been Cara’s dying moments if not for Zedd’s brother’s self-sacrifice swam unbidden before her mind’s eye.

She remembered it far too well to believe for a moment any of Cara’s vain insistences that it was duty alone that had inspired her to willingly spare the old man’s life. She recalled the way Cara’s baneling-sunken eyes had flashed with guilt and regret, with sorrow and apology, and felt her heartstrings stretch too tight as she remembered the way it had truly looked as though Cara was repenting for every ill deed she had ever done in that one fragile heartbeat.

Even in her world, a world where Cara was so much more resistant to compassion than the woman in front of her now... even her Cara had shown mercy to Thaddicus Zorander, and she hadn’t even been able to deny it. Any idiot could see it; who did Cara expect to convince otherwise?

Of course it hadn’t been her duty to Richard that had kept her from slaying Zedd’s brother so that she might live long enough to reach the source of shadow water and reverse the Underworldly effects of baneling magic. Of course there had been more to it than obligation. It had been that very duty, that same obligation to serve Richard, that had caused her to become a baneling in the first place; only an idiot would believe such a hollow lie without asking questions.

“Believe what you want,” Cara grumbled moodily, confirming Kahlan’s thoughts as she seemed to reply to a challenge issued by her phantom Richard. “I’m telling you what it is.”

“You’re telling him what you wish it was,” Kahlan informed her pointedly. “Because you’re too proud to admit that it was you, not Richard, that made you want to spare an old man’s life. Because you’re too damn scared of your own heart and your own soul and your own self to ever admit that you might care for someone other than yourself. Because, for some stupid reason, in your own stupid head, it’s weakness. That’s what it is, Cara. _That_.”

Cara said nothing for some time after that, and Kahlan wondered if Richard was delivering a similarly stirring speech. She hoped he was, though she rather suspected he was just staring hopelessly at his own feet.

Not that it mattered, anyway. It would take so much more than a pretty speech to break through Cara’s defences, and Kahlan knew that perfectly well, even as she wished it wasn’t so. She had tried, more times than she could count, and Richard had tried just as hard. It hadn’t made the least difference, and perhaps it never would. There was no room for frilly speeches and pretty words in the heart of a Mord-Sith, even if that heart was softened almost beyond recognition. Perhaps especially to a heart so much removed from what it had once been. Perhaps, more even than any other, to Cara’s heart.

Cara had a point, Kahlan supposed (as deeply as it pained her to admit it), when she fell back on her Mord-Sith training as an excuse to keep from letting herself feel. It was an excuse, of course, but it was also valid; there were some things, some traumas, that no amount of nurturing could ever undo, and it made Kahlan tremble with near-physical pain to think that this might yet prove itself to be one of them. Perhaps Cara’s heart was simply beyond repair, in any world.

“I can’t be what you want me to be,” Cara said at last; it wasn’t the first time she’d made the point, but this time the words reverberated through Kahlan’s head like rain on a pane of glass. “Send me away if you must, or else accept it.”

It seemed, Kahlan thought, suppressing a heartbroken sob, that the two versions of Cara weren’t so different at all.


	26. Chapter 26

_In the weeks that followed, Cara made an effort._

_It was clumsy, uncomfortable, and more than a little awkward, but it was an effort. She didn’t discuss her feelings, didn’t engage in silly small-talk or pounce on the others in unexpected and unwanted gestures of random affection... but she did the best that she could._

_And, though she tried to deny it, when Kahlan was placed under Nicci’s maternity spell and forced to reconnect with her estranged father, Cara’s half-witted attempts to offer support and sympathy to the suffering Confessor were far more sincere than she had ever believed herself capable of. It was unnerving, and dangerously close to paralysing._

_She hadn’t expected the wave of rejection that had descended upon her when Kahlan had snapped at her for trying to help; of course, she understood perfectly well why the Mother Confessor was in the mood she was in, but that hadn’t kept the barb from cutting at her. She certainly hadn’t anticipated the empathic pain that had lanced her heart at the sight of Kahlan bleeding from Nicci’s wounds. And, more than anything else in the world, she had not been prepared for the unstoppable wave of pure and undiluted terror that had flooded her soul when she’d believed that the Mother Confessor was near death._

_She had not expected any of those things, and yet they’d come so naturally to her, it was as if she had been feeling them for her entire life._

_Richard, she supposed, would call it ‘growth’. Kahlan, she knew, would call it ‘humanity’. Zedd, she hoped, wouldn’t call it anything unless it could be made edible. But it didn’t matter. Whatever foolish label they would insist on giving it, Cara didn’t care. The result was the same, whatever they decided to call it._

_The fact of the matter was, it had simply become easier to make the effort (easier to_ care _, though she still bristled at that particular word) than to do otherwise. It was more efficient to be compassionate than to waste her energies in trying not to be. She didn’t know how or why it had come to be that way, or what that meant about her, and she really didn’t want to think about that. Thinking about it, dwelling on it, ruminating on what she had become... that, she knew, would only lead to unnecessary conflict, and that would do more harm than good._

_No, she decided. It was best for them all if she simply accepted the change without question. The situation was what it was, and if it stopped Kahlan looking at her as though she were a kitten stuck in a tree, that was good enough for her._

_When the time came, some weeks and some adventures later, to begin planning for Richard’s birthday, Cara was almost a genuinely willing participant. She told herself (and anyone else who would stand still long enough to listen) that it was because acquiescing to the delighted squeals of the Mother Confessor was simply less stressful than arguing against them. And it was true... but it wasn’t the reason._

_The well-hidden truth of the matter was that some small part of Cara was glad to see Kahlan having something to smile about._

_Inevitable as it was, it was actually something of a relief when the party ended in disaster. Social gatherings had never been particularly high on Cara’s list of enjoyable pastimes, and that had become more and more true for every month she’d spent in the company of Richard and his friends._

_The Seeker was a hero, revered across the Midlands. The Mother Confessor was a figure of much-respected authority. The wizard was among the most powerful and well-loved denizens in the world. But Cara was a Mord-Sith, and the Mord-Sith were still universally hated._

_To their credit, the people of Dunshire were more polite than many others Cara had encountered over the course of her travels, but even they were visibly uncomfortable in her presence. It bothered Cara that she found she couldn’t really blame them for their unease; a Mord-Sith, after all, wasn’t supposed to make people comfortable. They did not wish to be approved of by people, they wanted to be feared by them. Every inch of her was trained to incite terror and inflict pain. For all of her so-called growth, and all of her apparent humanity (both of which notions she still balked at), she wasn’t exactly a vision of celebratory goodwill._

_When she acquiesced to be part of the magician’s ‘trick’, it wasn’t out of any desire to change that. It wasn’t borne of a desire to get into the spirit of the party, nor was it borne of an effort to conform to what she had been told more times than she could count were social norms. No. It was for Kahlan, and it was for Richard._

_It was because she had spent nearly two days of her life (what felt like two decades) planning and preparing and watching as Kahlan laughed and smiled and imagined aloud the look on Richard’s face when he was caught by surprise. It was because they had all endured a very difficult few weeks, and to see Kahlan made so happy by such a simple thing was refreshing. Even Cara, for all her self-imposed stoniness, could not ignore the desire to drag the Confessor’s elation out for a few minutes more... and, by so doing, also extend Richard’s._

_She could feel the eyes of everyone in the room following her as she ascended onto the magician’s platform, but she ignored them. This wasn’t for the fools who shuddered at the sight of her when she met their curious gazes. It was for the Seeker and his Confessor, for her companions. For her... acquaintances._

_It was, of course, doomed to end in tears._

*

“Kahlan.”

Even though she knew perfectly well that Cara was addressing her other self, Kahlan felt her heart skip a beat.

“I’m here,” she said, the words coming instinctively by this point.

She knew this scene well, too. Cara had been mumbling for some minutes about birthdays and parties and annoying villages and the necessity of searching for the Stone of Tears, and Kahlan remembered fondly the way her Cara had made exactly the same vociferous objections when they had been the ones planning Richard’s birthday party. It amused her (through the blessed perspective of hindsight) to know that, had they taken Cara’s complaints seriously, they never would have found themselves locked in a tomb for an entire day, on the brink of death, and then forced to rescue Zedd from the embrace of a magical monster.

Clearly, she mused, they needed to listen to Cara more often than they did, and she chuckled softly to herself as the Mord-Sith shifted restlessly in place beside her. Had she been conscious, Kahlan was sure Cara would have been quirking a brow at her just then and pointing out with a self-satisfied smirk that she had told them so.

“What does it say?” she demanded instead, all irritability and moodiness.

For her part, Kahlan smiled ironically at the question, and struggled to quell the mnemonic flutter in her chest. The journey book, of course.

“It says we’re going to die,” she told her motionless companion. “It says we’ve got a day’s worth of air left, and then we’re going to die. It says you’re going to try and tell me that you care, but you won’t be able to. So we’ll sit there in silence for hours, because you can’t talk about your feelings and you won’t let me talk about mine. And then Richard will save us in the last few seconds before we run out of air, and we’ll save Zedd before the nygax kills him, and then we’ll go back to the quest as if nothing ever happened.” She took a deep breath. “That’s what it says.”

Honestly, she hadn’t intended the speech to sound quite so bitter as it did, and, though she knew Cara couldn’t possibly have heard her words, she was instantly contrite about them even so.

“I’m sorry, Cara,” she sighed, a quiet afterthought as she forced herself to swallow the negativity. “I know it’s not your fault. It’s who you are.”

Cara, meanwhile, was rolling her spell-blind eyes. “You were right,” she remarked with a careless chuckle. “This party’s lots of fun.”

*

_When Richard’s message came through in the conveniently-provided journey book, Cara leaped on the opportunity to offer her own blood._

_They had only been in the tomb a handful of minutes, if even that long, and Cara was already beginning to feel the telltale tendrils of helplessness beginning to wrap themselves around her chest, working in tandem with the close quarters to cut off her air, far more effectively than the prospect of asphyxiation._

_She hated being trapped, and hated it all the more when it involved small, tight spaces; places like this were so similar (so different, and yet so eerily reminiscent) to the tiny rat-infested cell that had been her home for so much of her early training. The mere thought of it, the memory of that damn cell, had been enough to cause the helplessness to surge up within her, and she was grateful beyond words for distraction provided by Richard’s message in the book._

_Anything, she thought gladly, to keep her from realising how close the walls were, how cold the floor, how much the sputtering torches sounded like skittering claws..._

_“He wants to know if we’re all right,” Kahlan informed her, cutting off her thoughts._

_Cara could tell that she was drawing strength from the knowledge that the words came from Richard, and allowed herself to swallow down some small amount of the Confessor’s confidence. Not a lot, of course (she did not need to cling to such spectres like the weaker woman did), but just enough to banish the phantom memories of rats and torture and little girls in tiny cells._

_“Then we’d better write him back,” she said, and allowed herself to relish the twin prospects of making herself useful and drawing blood._

_She crossed the scant space in less than a heartbeat, forcefully yanking off one of her gloves as she moved, and leaned forwards without hesitation in the very instant she reached Kahlan’s side. With only a day’s worth of air to share between the two of them, there was no time for politeness, and there was no time to ask permission for such things as this. So, without patience or preamble, she pulled one of Kahlan’s trademark daggers from its sheath at her thigh, and raised it unwaveringly to where her open palm waited in throbbing anticipation of pain._

_Part of her (the part that flattered itself that she knew Kahlan) expected that Kahlan would cry out in pointless protest, and she quirked a brow in expectation of some Confessor-style indignation. She was perfectly capable of providing the blood herself, she would say. She wasn’t some broken-winged little bird who needed protection from a little pain, and Richard wasn’t here to command Cara to look after her as if she were a mewling infant. She was the Mother Confessor, and she did not need, or want, Cara to play the martyr on her behalf._

_It surprised her more than she cared to admit that those arguments never came... and yet, at the same time, she supposed she should have foreseen the acquiescence far more easily than she’d assumed the complaint. For all the parts of Cara that believed they knew Kahlan, there were just as many parts of Kahlan that believed they knew Cara._

_For all the differences between them, Kahlan did understand (and that knowledge was a source of simultaneous anger and relief) that Cara needed to ground herself in pain. More, she understood that the offer, though undeniably a chivalrous one as well, was first and foremost a gesture of plain Mord-Sith selfishness._

_However sincerely Cara may have wanted to spare Kahlan the need to slice her own hand open (she was, after all, still the Mother Confessor), the truth of the matter was, she simply didn’t want to share it. The blood, the pain, the sweet song of cold steel sliding against sweat-slick skin... she wanted it all for herself._

_Kahlan understood that, and so she said nothing._

_The blade sang, rich and glorious, as it carved an effortless path through her palm, and it took every ounce of self-restraint that Cara possessed to keep from moaning aloud at the heady sensation of thick blood and smooth metal as they slid over each other with musical rhythm. It was glorious, and it was delicious._

_She needed it, relished it, worshipped it, and she kept her eyes locked firmly on her hand as she clenched her fist and squeezed every last drop of oozing blood into the waiting inkwell; as certainly as she knew that Kahlan understood her thirst for pain, she didn’t want to see the disapproval that she knew would be dancing in the Confessor’s eyes. She didn’t want to taint this blissful sensation with the knowledge that her companion did not approve, and so she focused on the task at hand, milking all the pain and blood that she could from such a fleeting injury._

_If she judged Cara for enjoying the moment a little too much, Kahlan was decorous enough not to say anything about it. Cara, though she would never acknowledge it, was grateful._

*

Time had stretched on forever, Kahlan remembered.

Neither of them (both warriors at heart, however different their upbringings) had been willing to sit around and wait for death to claim them, but there had been little they could do, trapped as they were like rats on a sinking ship, and each hour seemed to last a lifetime longer than the one before. It had been exhausting, so much more so than the absence of air, or even the lack of hope.

Kahlan distinctly recalled being silently awed by how long a single day could seem when all that waited on the other side was death.

Cara had, of course, been the more restless of the two. Kahlan herself had been far from eager to simply sit idly by and watch the sands counting down their remaining hours, but Cara had been almost possessed by the need to keep moving. She had embraced every opportunity to take action, however insignificant that action was, as though it were some kind of world-altering military tactic. From crossing the room to check the journey book to shifting position to give Kahlan more space, she had treated everything like a call to arms, a task of utmost importance.

Because she could not fight death, Kahlan supposed, she had fought stillness instead.

Far more than Kahlan, Cara had been almost violently uncomfortable in the tomb. Her unhappiness at being locked in such a small place for such a long time had been obvious (to say nothing of how vocally she’d spoke of it on more than one occasion), and Kahlan had found herself idly wondering whether she was claustrophobic. Not that she would ever admit it, of course, but Kahlan couldn’t help thinking that perhaps it was the tightness of the space, more even than the ever-pervasive threat of death, that was making Cara so utterly unable to sit still.

They hadn’t discussed it. They hadn’t discussed anything at all, really. They had talked about the situation, argued once or twice about the best potential method of escape, and spent a little time turning the tiny room upside-down in search of some symbol or marking that might identify its location for Richard. They’d spoken very briefly about death, and Cara had even offered (albeit in passing) to end her own life in the hopes that it would extend Kahlan’s; it had been a fleeting offer, and Kahlan hadn’t needed to read Cara to know that it had been a less-than sincere one. An idle suggestion, because she didn’t have anything else to give.

Had she accepted the offer, of course, Kahlan knew that Cara would have done as she’d said without a moment’s hesitation, but she hadn’t. She couldn’t bear the thought of letting Cara even think of sacrificing herself again, and all the more so knowing that she would be the cause of this time – the _inspiration_ for it, if such a concept existed. Besides, they’d both known the suggestion had been little more than a display – all loud words and bright colours, but even Cara had known it was impractical and utterly absurd.

Cara had already died once in service to Richard (though she’d returned as a baneling), and had probably been through the same fate far more times than that over the course of her early Mord-Sith training, thanks to the breath of life. As well as Kahlan knew that the concept of death (much less the act of dying itself) didn’t frighten Cara at all, she also knew that her companion had no desire to return to the Underworld at any point in the near future, and she had no intention of sending her there herself, for any reason. Her days of wishing that fate on her Mord-Sith companion were long past.

They’d grown quieter as the air had grown thinner. Kahlan had watched, dangerously close to heartbroken, as Cara struggled to give voice to thoughts and feelings that had no words, but had made no effort to push her. It had been almost physically painful to watch, but Kahlan hadn’t wanted Cara to feel self-conscious, and so she’d kept her mouth shut. Waiting. Hoping. Perhaps even expecting, a little bit.

But the words, of course, had never come, and Cara’s face had hardened to flint in almost the very same moment as Kahlan had realised that it was not going to happen. Last-minute confessions, expressing a lifetime’s worth of repressed emotion in a single moment, admitting to feelings she still could not comprehend... it was simply too alien a concept for her to digest, frightened and lost as she was in a tomb with no air and no escape, and so she’d given up. They both had.

It had been enough, or so Kahlan had told herself at the time, to know that Cara had _wanted_ to say those things, to know that she felt them, and felt them strongly enough to genuinely wish she could give voice to them. She had been so sure that it didn’t matter whether the words had actually been said or not.

Watching her now, though, locked up in a spell that was supposed to be different, knowing as she did that some things could never be changed, not by powerful magic or powerful friendship or anything else... suddenly, it did matter. All of a sudden, she wanted the words. Spoken and tasted and shared, in every possible sense. Suddenly, simply knowing that they were true wasn’t nearly enough. Suddenly, without cause or warning, she needed – _needed_ , with all her heart and soul – to hear them.

It wasn’t enough. Why wasn’t it enough?

A twitching shudder wracked Cara’s lithe frame, bringing Kahlan’s attention back to the task at hand. The restless tension she remembered seeing in her Cara was present again now. The other world’s Cara was cranky, sullen. She was everything Kahlan’s own Cara had been, amplified, and, though she never raised her voice, it was obvious that everything the other Kahlan said was fraying the edges of her temper just a little bit more.

Kahlan did her best to soothe over Cara’s tattered nerves, holding and soothing her in what few scant ways had seemed to offer at least a little physical reprieve in other such situations, but even they didn’t seem to help very much. Cara remained tense and uncomfortable, and Kahlan remained helpless.

“You’ll be out of there soon,” she said, because it was the only comfort she could think of.

Cara swallowed hard, once and then again, struggling to breathe. Kahlan recalled the feeling well, the lack of air, the effort just to draw breath, the screaming of her lungs and throat, and she gave Cara’s arm a gentle squeeze.

“Not much longer,” she promised. “Richard won’t let you die. You know that.”

Cara turned her face up towards the ceiling, as though in prayer. “The air’s getting thinner,” she observed, matter-of-factly.

“I know,” Kahlan said, fingertips trailing upwards until they skirted Cara’s sweat-soaked brow. “It’ll get worse before it gets better. But it _will_ get better, Cara.”

Visibly fighting to keep her breathing even, Cara turned, twitching again, then raised an eyebrow that would have been purely comedic on anyone else. It was comedic on her, too, but somehow she managed to mask the ridiculousness of the gesture with genuine disdain, and Kahlan felt her own brows knit together in a frown.

“Has the lack of air driven you mad?” Cara demanded, oddly cold.

Kahlan’s frown deepened. “Not that I’m aware of.”

The brief silence that followed was evidence enough that her other self was trying to explain whatever half-cocked idea had made its presence known. Apparently, what small and subtle differences still existed between her Cara and this one had extended its influence to Kahlan herself (beyond even what had been done to Dennee), because she had no recollection of this at all.

“As tempting as the offer to kill you may be...” Cara said at long last, smiling serenely, and Kahlan choked. “Richard would never forgive me if I let you die.”

Had she not heard the words, Kahlan would never have believed them. It made sense, she supposed, in an oxygen-deprived and illogical sort of way that was entirely dependent on chance and the breath of life, but there was a great distance between airless logic and actually making the point aloud. Had her other self really been so bold as to ask that Cara kill her?

She remembered the same offer, half-hearted as it had been, falling from Cara’s lips, and she had expected that. Death meant little to a Mord-Sith, and self-sacrifice was a way of life to them; Cara had surrendered her life before, and would have done so again in a heartbeat if it were asked of her. Though she knew Cara hadn’t truly wanted to do it, it was not uncharacteristic at all for her to make the suggestion – the _offer_ – even so.

But she, Kahlan, was the Mother Confessor. There had been a prophecy in place, specifically entreating her to stay alive. And, for all the affection she’d felt for Cara even then, it was a different breed of kinship entirely to trust enough in her stability that she would believe her able to see through the breath of life under such precarious circumstances.

There had been so much at stake, and yet it seemed that the other world’s Kahlan had offered her life as forfeit without so much as a second thought. She’d had just that much faith in Cara to survive, and to use the breath of life when it was needed to bring her back; the idea had, by the sound of it, been instinctive.

“It’s too big a risk,” Cara pointed out sensibly. “We don’t know how long it’s going to take Richard to find us.” She paused just for a moment, and the sudden spark that lit up her whole face told Kahlan what was coming before the words even left her lips. “But there is another way.”

“Don’t say it!” Kahlan commanded. “Cara, don’t you dare suggest it.”

Cara ignored her. “I’ll die instead.”

Though that offer, at least, was familiar, everything about it was fundamentally different to what Kahlan remembered so clearly. This wasn’t an offer of courtesy, a suggestion to fill the idealess void between gasping breaths. Though the words themselves were similar enough, the feeling behind it couldn’t possibly have been more different.

Her Cara had been fixated, almost to the point of blindness, on her duty, her obligation, her honour; she’d promised Richard, time and again, that she would take care of Kahlan in his absence as though she were him, and she knew as well as everyone else in the world of the prophecy that demanded the Mother Confessor’s pure heart keep beating. She had been deliberately and purposefully Mord-Sith about it; she’d made the suggestion because it made sense, because it was all she had, because of Richard and the prophecy and a thousand other things.

This Cara couldn’t possibly be any more different. She wasn’t making the suggestion for Richard, for the prophecy, or for anyone or anything else in the world. She was making it because she was willing – really and truly willing – to end her life so that Kahlan’s may be spared.

There was no duty in the words now, no sense of obligation. This was no hollow offer, given without the intent or desire to see it through. Cara – this Cara – wasn’t just suggesting a potential alternative to waiting for their air to run out. No, she was truly and genuinely glad of the opportunity to sacrifice herself. As though the gesture would somehow be a means of voicing all the feelings that she still couldn’t, as though she could somehow show her loyalty by her deeds because she still couldn’t show it by her words. As though her death would prove, so far beyond speech, every indecipherable thing she was feeling.

The look on Cara’s face as she spoke was as intoxicating as it was confusing. She seemed almost delirious, giddy and drunk, and Kahlan wondered precisely how thin the air truly was to make her look so crazed. Her skin was flushed, soaked with sweat, hair plastered to her face, but there was nothing in her posture to suggest she was the least bit close to unconsciousness.

It was not the lack of air that was driving her delirium, Kahlan knew; it was the idea. The taste of death, the smell of blood, the hope for an end to all the waiting. The glory of knowing that Kahlan Amnell would survive. 

_Let me do this_ , she seemed to be saying. _Let me do it for you_.

Cara wasn’t merely offering her death. She was begging for it.

*

_Kahlan was staring at her like she’d grown a second head, and the look in her eyes only served to strengthen Cara’s resolve. Kahlan was clearly in no condition to see what was best for them; it was down to Cara to protect the Mother Confessor from her own chivalrous intentions._

_“I can’t bring you back,” Kahlan told her._

_As if Cara needed reminding of the fact. As if it wasn’t blindingly obvious, even to the rats that she had to keep reminding herself weren’t there. Forcing herself to banish the phantom rodents and her memories, Cara smiled, focusing on the woman who stood before her, and feeling her primal urges sharpening the edges of her teeth._

_“But you can live,” she said, very softly._

_There was no stopping the idea once it was formed. If she was going to die in this place (a possibility that was growing more and more likely for every hour that passed without a reprieve from Richard), Cara was going to make certain that she wasn’t going to die on her knees, gasping for breath, choking like a fish out of water, struggling and flailing for air that did not exist. That was not a death worthy of a Mord-Sith._

_No, she decided. If she doomed was to die here, she would die doing her duty, protecting the Mother Confessor as she had promised Richard she would on more occasions than she could count. If she was to die again... this time, she would die on_ her _terms._

_“Cara, no,” Kahlan was saying, apparently as resolved to thwart Cara’s plan as Cara was to see it carried out. “If you die, your death would be final.”_

_That, mused Cara, was the idea. She didn’t voice that thought aloud, though, instead gazing deep into Kahlan’s eyes, willing the Confessor to read her now as she had apparently done back when she’d been a baneling. Praying to a Creator she wasn’t entirely sure she believed in to grant Kahlan strength enough to see the necessity of this._

_Kahlan’s life was important. Kahlan Amnell was the single most important person in all the world; the prophecy said so, and (far more important to Cara) so did Richard. Cara, by contrast, was a Mord-Sith. Mord-Sith were expendable, and Cara herself cheated death far too many times already. She would not allow herself to cheat it again. She could not._

_“Better one of us,” she said simply, willing Kahlan to both see and accept the truth of the matter, even as she felt her smile widen with real hunger, “than both of us.”_

_Kahlan was staring at her as though she’d never seen her before. The look in the Mother Confessor’s eyes made Cara feel exposed, hot, sticky. More even than the overheated tomb or the ever-thinning air, the depth of disbelief in Kahlan’s eyes made her ache, almost lustily, for the Underworld._

_Was her gesture of self-sacrifice really so unexpected as to warrant such horrified shock? Was Kahlan so surprised that a Mord-Sith was capable of masochistic altruism? Or was it simply that she, Cara, had offered to surrender her own life for that of the Mother Confessor? She wanted to ask, to take Kahlan by the throat (as Kahlan had done to her so many times) and demand to know what she found so impossible to believe about this._

_Ultimately, though, she knew that it didn’t matter. Perhaps it was best that Kahlan couldn’t understand, that she instead believe Cara to be acting out of some twisted obligation to Richard or to the prophecy or to anything but Kahlan herself. It was simpler, after all, than the truth. Simpler than the fact of Cara’s countless last-minute reprieves, or her need to die on her own terms (her body and her mind screaming against the close quarters and the thinning air)... or, perhaps most suffocating of all, the real and genuine desire to know that she had helped Kahlan (not the Mother Confessor, not this time, but_ Kahlan _) live on._

_Cara had always clung stubbornly to the belief that feelings such as love and friendship were weaknesses. Even what she’d shared with Dahlia, the closest thing to true affection she had ever known (and probably ever would)... even that, unnamed and indefinable as it was, had caused more pain for both of them than pleasure, and more suffering than either would ever admit to._

_Again and again Cara had suffered for Dahlia, or Dahlia had suffered for Cara, or they had suffered together and for each other. Cara, who could not stand to see Dahlia hurt, taking blows and punishments designed for her so-called friend. Dahlia, who wanted nothing more than to be allowed to care, finding herself deprived of the chance to see born the child she had unwittingly fallen in love with. The two of them together, tangled up in and around each other, locked in a bloody embrace and blanketed by a tattered curtain of pain and suffering and self-destruction._ That _was the reward of feeling._

_Sentiment was weakness. Cara knew this, and she knew just as well that weaknesses always bred more of their kind._

_And yet, she did not feel weak for wanting this. She didn’t feel powerful either, not exactly, but she felt strong and she felt brave, and she felt complete. So many times, she had faced death, in the last year alone... but this was different. If she met the Keeper this time, and spent the rest of eternity enduring horrors that would make her training seem like child’s play, it would be worth it. It would be worth it if she knew that the Mother Confessor lived on in her place, if she knew that Kahlan would survive to see Richard again, if she knew that they would continue their quest, and succeed; it would be worth all the fires of the Underworld to know that she had helped it to happen. For that, for any part of it... it would be worth a thousand tortures and a hundred thousand Keepers._

_It had to be the lack of air, the bubbling in her chest that was so like feeling. It had to be the deprivation, the closeness of death, the ghostly memories of being locked in a cell not unlike this hated tomb. That was all it was. She knew it. She knew it, because the alternative was unthinkable. But it didn’t matter._

_All that mattered was the fact that she felt it, that she knew beyond all doubt that this would be the answer, that she needed to die here and now and like this. It was more than feeling, more than sentiment, more than affection. It was blood, flowing through her and firing her and making her dizzy. It was primal pain and pure passion and need and want and violence. It was death and promise and duty and honour. It was..._

_...it was all she had to give._

_If she could only make Kahlan see it._

_“Sit down, Cara,” the other woman was telling her, and her voice was as distant as the sorrow flickering behind her eyes. “You’re delirious.”_

_It was probably true, Cara conceded silently, but that didn’t matter any more than the lack of air or the memories of tight spaces. Whether she was delirious or not, the facts of the situation were clear as daylight. Kahlan needed to live. It was the most important thing in the world, and it was the most important thing in Cara’s heart. Kahlan’s life was everything, and it was Cara’s responsibility (and hers alone) to preserve it._

_She would not cheat death again. Not this time. This time, she would distract it so that Kahlan might cheat it instead._

_Wordlessly, she allowed Kahlan to lead her over to the corner and sit her down on the raised edge of what had probably once been a coffin. The stone was cooler than it looked, and Cara was grateful for its solid presence against the sticky fabric of her leathers and the sweat-drenched knots of her hair._

_She said nothing as Kahlan sat down beside her, presumably under the assumption that sitting there would somehow give her enough of an advantage to stop Cara doing something foolish if she got it into her mind to do so. The gesture was amusing, and all the more so given Cara’s faltering state of mind. Kahlan Amnell was one of the most formidable fighters that Cara had ever been fortunate enough to share a battlefield with, but she was certainly no match for a Mord-Sith. Not even a delirious one._

_And, delirious or not, Cara had a duty to perform. She knew what she needed to do, and nothing in the world was going to keep her from seeing it done... least of all the Mother Confessor._

*

“You were right.”

Kahlan blinked. Agreement from Cara on any subject was rare indeed, but there was such exhausted defeat in her tone this time that the Mother Confessor ached to know its context; was the lack of air truly driving Cara so close to the edge of sanity that she was willing to accept the possibility that someone else (and Kahlan, of all people) might be right about something?

“About what?” she asked, curiosity overpowering her common sense for the moment.

“You once told me...” Cara started, and Kahlan was stunned by how shaky she sounded.

For a few short moments, she almost allowed herself to believe that the wobble in Cara’s voice had been borne of emotion, pure and true and honest, but it took almost no time at all to remember the tomb and the thinning air and the fact that Cara was inching her way ever closer to oblivion with each unsteady breath she took. It had to be the lack of air, Kahlan reminded herself, shaking her head in self-directed disgust. Emotion as raw as what she thought she was hearing was unheard-of in a Mord-Sith, not even in one as close to the grave as Cara was.

“...that it’s a hard world,” Cara elaborated, breath hitching, and Kahlan smoothed a few rebellious strands of damp hair away from her face so that she could better see the way her jaw was clenching.

“I did?” Kahlan asked, forgetting herself.

“...and we don’t get many chances,” Cara elaborated, and Kahlan could only frown. “...to tell people...” She paused for a moment, gulping down nonexistent air. “...how much they mean to us.”

Kahlan felt her eyes widen, even as she pulled back. Every fibre of her being was suddenly screaming at her to get as close to Cara as she could, to look deep into those spell-blinded eyes and feel what she was feeling. She wanted to get closer than just touching, closer than hearing and seeing and feeling, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. Cara had barely even said anything, and Kahlan couldn’t breathe.

She was more terrified of this – of these _words_ – than she had ever been of anything in her life. If she got too close, if she lay a single finger on Cara now, everything could fall apart. If she surrendered to what she wanted, if she let herself lean in, or move, or touch... if she let herself do anything at all, the moment could shatter. It would be lost, lost to the haze of time and magic and worlds that didn’t exist, lost to her forever. And she would never see it repeated.

“Cara...” she breathed, frightened and hopeful and a million other things all at once. “Cara, what are you trying to say? Cara, please...”

For a heartbeat that lasted a lifetime, Cara said nothing. Even through the spell that blanketed them so completely, Kahlan could see that her eyes were blazing, raw and desperate in a way that even her Mord-Sith training hadn’t brought out in her, burning hot and powerful in spite of the white film that coated them, and so close to brimming with what looked like tears. Kahlan could see everything in her eyes just then, as if the spell had melted away and there was just her and Cara and this moment that she didn’t fully comprehend just yet, but which she knew was so very important.

“There’s no-one a Mord-Sith should hate more...” Cara said eventually, and Kahlan found herself holding her breath in anticipation of something unknown. “...than a Confessor.”

“I know,” Kahlan whispered. It was all she had.

And she did know. She knew all the reasons why Cara should hate her, and all the reasons why she should hate Cara in kind. She knew why they should never have reached this point at all, why they should never have even been acquaintances, much less companions... much less _this_.

She could kill Cara with a single touch, and very nearly had on more than one occasion. Her powers were the rawest essence of everything the Mord-Sith were not, love and devotion and feelings so powerful that the sheer weight of them was enough to render any one of Cara’s sisters dying in unimaginable pain.

Confessors and Mord-Sith had always been on opposite sides. Of everything – life, death, war, love, even the world itself. Their hatred for each other was more natural even than the hatred that shared between wolves and rabbits; in both cases, one could devour the other alive with a single flick of teeth or claws... but the Mord-Sith were far more dangerous than rabbits, and Confessors were much cleverer than wolves.

Kahlan had been raised her entire life to believe that the Mord-Sith were the epitome of evil, not just by their bloodstained reputation but by their deeds as well – deeds that were infamous across the Midlands and beyond. Cara herself had done terrible, unspeakable things, to the Midlands and to Kahlan herself (to say nothing of her family), things that even the most peaceful-minded person in all the world would have trouble forgiving.

In spite of all the months that had passed since Cara had joined their group, Kahlan knew perfectly well that she was still well within her rights to hate Cara, to wish her dead, and to take every opportunity to make her life miserable. Nobody, not even Richard, would have blamed her for a moment if she was still hateful and bitter, longing for a vengeance she could not eke out; all the growth and humanity in the world could not undo the damage that Cara had done, and even the Seeker knew that.

For a very long time, Kahlan had truly believed that there was nothing in the world Cara would ever be able to do that could redeem her of those crimes, or ever make herself right in Kahlan’s eyes. What she had done was beyond description, and beyond forgiveness.

And yet, in what felt like no time at all (though she knew it was far longer than it seemed), here they were, and Kahlan’s eyes were brimming with real and honest tears as she watched Cara struggle to breathe and think and speak, to voice things she’d never expected to know, to feel things she could not understand. Suddenly, in no time at all, her feelings for this woman – this woman she was supposed to hate, this woman she _had_ hated – were anything but simple, and anything but negative. The world hadn’t changed, but Cara had... and it shouldn’t have been enough, but it was.

“I was trained to hate you,” Cara whispered, echoing her thoughts, and Kahlan felt one of her countless tears spilling over. “But I don’t.”

Kahlan couldn’t believe how difficult it was for her to speak right then. These were the words she’d never expected to hear, the words she had thought were beyond even the effects of the spell, beyond even Dahlia’s undeniable influence.

There was so much in Cara – both of them – so much bitterness and hardened cruelty that hadn’t changed, so much stoic self-protection; for all the strange (and sometimes beautiful) ways that Dahlia had shaped Cara’s life, for all the ways she’d made her existence richer for having been there, there had been too much of the old Cara (too much of _her_ Cara) in the woman who had hardened herself after Leo’s death.

There was too much of the Mord-Sith in the woman who had insisted to Richard that she could not care for him and Kahlan the way they wanted her to. It was all familiar, too familiar, and too much like Cara. But this... this was not. Not like Cara, not like a Mord-Sith, not like anything Kahlan had ever known.

“I don’t hate you either,” she managed.

It didn’t even scratch the surface of what she wanted to say, but her throat was too dry to say anything else. All she could do was stare, moved in a way she hadn’t been in a long time, heart singing and soaring and crying out all at once, and wish that she could reach out and touch Cara but terrified that even the tiniest movement would shatter the moment.

Cara, for her part, was still fighting for breath. Part of Kahlan wanted to tell her to stop, to slow down, to let her body steady itself for a moment lest the lack of air kill her before she could finish her speech... but the vast majority of her was simply transfixed.

She could no more interrupt Cara now, even for her own good, than she could reach into the spell and take the place of the other world’s Kahlan, however desperately she wanted to do that as well. That Kahlan, a Kahlan whose sister had been killed mercifully, who had watched as Cara had harboured well-hidden feelings for Leo Dane, who had been a witness to Cara’s dreams about her former sisters, and her frustrations at having not been able to see Denna’s body after so many years waiting for the opportunity to kill her. That Kahlan, who had no idea just how lucky she was.

It was a Kahlan, who was as far removed from she herself as this Cara was from her own, and it didn’t seem fair that these two people could share such a moment as this when she and her Cara (the only Cara that mattered, her heart insisted) could not. That moment had been taken from them, stolen by Zedd and his impulsive spellcasting, and Kahlan had never been more grateful in all her life that the wizard wasn’t in the room than she was right at that moment, because she would not have been held responsible for her actions if he had been.

Cara had been right, she decided, eyes dark and wet as she watched the Mord-Sith fight with all the strength she had to compose herself just long enough to finish what she needed to say. What Zedd had taken from her, what he’d taken from them both, nobody else could ever comprehend. And nobody ever should, either.

The wizard had done a great many good things in his life, Kahlan knew, and a great many more that he wasn’t proud of; he had made mistakes, just like everyone did, though the nature of his work meant that his mistakes were often bigger than others’. But this... this defied belief, and it defied Kahlan’s ability to defend him. He had stolen from Kahlan, and from Cara, a moment too precious for words, and words too precious to ever be substituted. He had taken everything they were.

Suddenly, saving the world was not a good enough reason.

Cara shifted, apparently having found some deeply-buried reserve of inner strength, just enough to go on. Kahlan watched, listened, raptly.

“...and I don’t want to die...” Cara forced out, the words coming in a breathless, frightened rush, “...without you knowing...”

The look on her face shattered what little control Kahlan had been holding over her tears, and she held her breath as they fell in earnest.

“...that I consider you to be...”

Though they’d been travelling together for a long time, though she had thought she’d grown used to all the countless expressions that flitted so often across Cara’s face in any given moment, Kahlan was fairly certain that the Mord-Sith hadn’t ever looked quite so helpless or so small as she did now. She’d seen her looking small before, of course, and helpless too... but not like this. Not with what seemed to be the weight of all the world on her shoulder, or so much raw power pouring from within her like waves over an empty beach.

“... _my friend_.”

It was less than a whisper, less even than a breath, but Kahlan had never heard such raw emotion poured into two words in all her life. And those words. Those words, words that Kahlan had been so sure she would never hear, a declaration of friendship that was beyond Cara’s capability. Those words, those emotions. That feeling.

The two of them.

Overwhelmed on a level she hadn’t known she possessed, Kahlan was trembling. Face streaked with tears, eyes so wide they hurt, jaw almost unhinged, and utterly uncontrolled. Beyond reason, beyond reality. She couldn’t think, couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe.

All she could do was surge forward, as if the world was collapsing all around them, and kiss Cara full on the mouth.


	27. Chapter 27

It lasted less than a heartbeat.

Their lips had barely touched, Cara’s surprisingly yielding beneath her own, when the impact of what she was doing crashed down over Kahlan and sent her reeling. With a loud (and embarrassingly undignified) yelp, she pulled herself away from the other woman, toppling from the bed and falling to the floor in a single far-from-fluid motion.

Had Cara been in her own mind, perhaps Kahlan would’ve been less quick to pull away; though they’d been together scarcely a moment, Kahlan’s lips tingled with sensation, and ached with the desire to return to where they’d been, to go back and drink down more of Cara, all of Cara, everything she had. Every nerve in her body longed for it, screamed for it, pleaded for it, and, if there had been the least shred of Cara left in the woman who still lay oblivious on the bed, Kahlan knew beyond all doubt that she would be devouring her without restraint. But there wasn’t.

The body in front of her was unconscious, the mind within trapped in a spell; she wasn’t even aware of what was happening around her, much less what Kahlan was thinking of doing to her. She couldn’t take advantage of Cara’s vulnerable position, however hungrily her heart and her lips cried out to do so. It was wrong, on more levels than she could count. She was Cara’s protector, her _friend_ , and she would not betray the trust that had been placed in her just so she could satisfy herself by stealing unoffered kisses. More, she would not allow herself to indulge in the whims of her body while her heart was still so conflicted.

“I’m sorry,” she blurted out, climbing clumsily up onto the bed and dropping back down beside the still-prone Mord-Sith. “I’m sorry, Cara. I didn’t think. I just... I didn’t...”

Cara was just as unaware of the apology as she had been of the kiss, and Kahlan draped an arm over her, breathing far more heavily than she should have been after so fleeting a moment. She couldn’t take her eyes off Cara’s face; once again, and in spite of Kahlan’s repeated efforts to keep it tamed and out of the way, strands of sweat-dampened blonde hair had fallen over Cara’s eyes, and Kahlan extended a shaking hand to once again brush the rebellious strands away.

There were tears shining in Cara’s eyes, and the sight of them caused Kahlan’s heart to spasm with empathetic pain.

It was so much more than simply a confession of friendship, she realised as she watched the torrid ripples of self-conscious emotion cascade like a waterfall across Cara’s features. Even the dull white blanket of the spell’s effect wasn’t enough to keep the feelings from touching the depths of Cara’s blind eyes, and it certainly didn’t take a Confessor to be able to read their meaning. Cara was giving herself to Kahlan – to the other Kahlan, and to her – completely and utterly.

Briefly, she wondered if this was why Cara had been so quick to let Kahlan be the one to see this. Richard had said that she wanted to share herself, all of herself, with Kahlan; he’d told her that, by allowing the Mother Confessor to bear witness to the spell’s effects, to the life that neither of them would ever truly live through, Cara was surrendering a part of herself. Had she known that this moment would have been borne from it? Had she known just how much it would mean to Kahlan to hear the words?

She couldn’t have known. It wasn’t possible. But still, though she knew it couldn’t be, a part of Kahlan yearned for it to be so.

“You’ve made your point,” she heard herself muttering, a wave of bitterness breaking over an endless beach of affection. “I understand. Who you are, who you would have been, what she made you. I understand, Cara. All right? I understand. Now, please, come back to me.”

Cara’s only response was to raise a hand; as trembling and unsteady as it was, Kahlan took it firmly in both of hers, squeezing tight.

“Please,” she repeated, dangerously close to prayer. “Come back to me. End this now. I have to see you, I have to talk to you. I want to hold you.” The truth of it was as painful to realise as it was to say, and she closed her eyes against the emotion on Cara’s face. “Not like this, not with you like this. I want you to know I’m here. I want you to see me and talk to me and know me. Me, Cara, and you. Not her, and not some other version of you. I want _you_ , Cara, and _me_ , and _us_. I want you here. I need you with me.”

“I know,” Cara replied, a breathless whisper that was everything and nothing all at once.

The words lashed at her back, both wounding and comforting. Kahlan closed her eyes and wished that they were for her.

*

_Kahlan didn’t understand._

_It was better that way, Cara knew, but knowledge of the fact didn’t stop it from cutting into her like the almost-forgotten gash in her palm, nor did it assuage the guilt that tugged at her heart. If Kahlan didn’t understand, she couldn’t do anything about it, and Cara reminded herself of that again and again as she locked her gaze on the wall and prepared herself for what she needed to do, even as she hated herself for not taking it upon herself to rectify the Confessor’s error._

_Kahlan genuinely believed that Cara had poured out her heart (what little there was of it) because she believed they were going to die together. She truly believed that Cara was bracing herself for the moment when their air would run out and they would die choking on vacuum._

_Of course it wasn’t so simple, or so foolish. Cara was a Mord-Sith, and Mord-Sith did not dwell on deaths that were still some distance away. However inevitable it was, however certain (however cruelly the thinning air carved holes in her aching lungs), a Mord-Sith would never embrace the grave until it was right there before them. If Kahlan thought for a moment that Cara was preparing for a death that would not arrive for a great many minutes, she was a fool._

_Cara had been setting her affairs in order, that was true, but it wasn’t because she feared the outcome that Kahlan did. Her death was far more imminent than that, and she was glad of it._

_If she was going to die here, it would be on her own terms. Not when the air ran out, gasping and gurgling, helpless and hopeless, but with a blade in her hand and a bloody battle-cry tearing loose from her lips. She was going to die for Kahlan Amnell. It had to be done._

_Her death would be now, and it would be instant... but, for all the steel in her resolve, she simply could not bring herself to do the deed without telling Kahlan what it meant, how important it was. She could not die, could not breathe her last looking up into those too-blue Confessor’s eyes without being sure, beyond all doubt, that Kahlan knew she was doing this for her. All of it, and all of her. Kahlan needed to know that she was valued... not simply for the beating of her heart, but for all of herself. She needed to know that Cara was not sacrificing herself for the Mother Confessor, but for Kahlan. For her_ friend _._

_Cara would not allow herself another death without telling the people who mattered how much they meant to her. And Kahlan meant so much... so very much._

_Using every ounce of the strength that had been beaten into her for all her life, Cara forced herself to ignore the way Kahlan was looking at her as she climbed purposefully to her feet. She couldn’t focus on Kahlan now that she’d done what was needed. She couldn’t look into her eyes, couldn’t see the way she was no doubt staring at her, eyes wet and filled with love, as though Cara had somehow become the most important person in all the world. As though she had single-handedly sealed the tear in the veil simply because she’d voiced her thoughts. A single glance at Kahlan now, feeling as she did to her bones all the things they had just shared, would undo everything she’d built herself up to do... and she would not allow that to happen._

_The blade was comforting in her hand, straight and sharp and steadying. It was everything Cara needed right then, and it was only the frustrating knowledge of how little time she had to see the deed done that kept her from taking a luxuriant moment to appreciate just how delicious – how perfect – the weapon felt. But she knew, even before she heard the strangled cry from the woman behind her, that it would be only a matter of seconds (if even that long) before Kahlan tried to stop her, and she did not have the time to indulge herself._

_“Cara, no!”_

_Forcing herself to ignore the words, and the staggered pain threaded through them, Cara raised the blade as high as she could in both hands, steeling herself in body and mind for what was to come—_

_—and even that, less than a moment, was a moment too long._

_The blade was ripped from her hands and sent clattering across the floor, Kahlan’s grip tight to the point of pain as she threw Cara with more force than she should have been capable of towards the far wall. It was a pointless exercise, of course, because the dagger had already been liberated from her; still, as she slammed into the solid stone surface, Cara found herself caring little about whether there was or was not a purpose to Kahlan’s being so violent with her. All that mattered was powering through Kahlan (no easy task, she knew, but the woman was an unwanted obstacle) and taking up the dagger once more._

_“Get out of my way,” she snarled, righting herself._

_All feints at human emotion were long gone from both her voice and her demeanour now; whatever sentiment Kahlan might still have be feeling (so soon after the too-brief moment they’d just shared), Cara had cast her own aside in the instant she’d stood up. She was Mord-Sith now, completely and wholly... and Mord-Sith did not allow Confessors to best them in any way._

_“No,” Kahlan whispered, but the fierceness in her posture was belied by the empathy and the heartache in her eyes._

_It was an invitation, and Cara couldn’t suppress the panted breath that tore from her despite the lack of air as she met Kahlan’s determined gaze, simultaneously looking both at her and through her, gauging the distance between herself and the discarded dagger. She could feel the heat and the resolve pouring off the other woman, thicker than blood and more potent than the sweat that clung so stubbornly to them both._

_Kahlan could try to stop her, if she wanted to. She could try to stand in the way, could try to keep Cara from reaching the blade and doing what needed to be done. The Mother Confessor could try as hard as she wanted, a thousand times and more besides, but she would not succeed. Cara would._

_Without warning, speed and efficiency so much more important than the barely-present air in her screaming lungs, Cara made a move for the dagger..._

_...and the open-handed slap that sent her stumbling backwards, was simultaneously the most infuriating and exciting thing she had ever experienced._

_She tasted blood. Hot, wet. Delicious. It intoxicated her, heated her, sparked a fire deep within her, and suddenly the dagger was forgotten. Death was forgotten, friendship was forgotten, Kahlan Amnell was forgotten. Everything was forgotten in a haze of blood and heat and violence and pain... beautiful, glorious pain. Pain that was so much more than life or death or friendship, pain that flowed through her veins like molten steel and poured itself into the empty mould where her heart had been just moments ago. Pain that was more important than the ever-thinning air, pain that was more powerful than the cruellest agiel. Pain, nothing but pain._

_Ears ringing, she straightened up, clutching her jaw. She knew the Confessor would see the wildness in her eyes and know from experience that she was lost, that Cara was gone and in her place was the Mord-Sith who would tear her apart and relish the blood as it washed her hands clean of those weak emotions. If the Confessor knew what was good for her, she would run. Though there was nowhere to go, no safe place to hide, she would run anyway, or else she would be rooted by fear to the spot, trapped like a rabbit before a stampede._

_But, of course, she was a Confessor... and Confessors were not afraid of Mord-Sith._

_Fuelled by rage – at the fact, at the woman, at the world itself – Cara lashed out._

_A blow that would have easily broken the jaw of a lesser soul evoked little more than a startled cry from the Mother Confessor as it landed. It was disappointing, but the animal in Cara was glad that this would not be over so quickly or so easily._

_Panting, gasping, straining for even just a shred of control, she waited for the Confessor to recover. She wasn’t entirely sure why she felt the need to be so patient (so_ chivalrous _) towards her opponent, the hated Confessor, when every inch of her was quivering with urgent need; she wanted nothing more than to throw the woman up against the very wall she herself had just been catapulted into, to take her, pain and pleasure and both at the same time, to destroy everything that she was... and yet she waited, and she did not know why._

_Some part of her must have wanted to see the pain in the Confessor’s eyes as she struck stone, she decided (because the alternative was too soft, too weak, too unlike the primal beast that had control of her), and the hunger that flared up at the thought of inflicting such pain made breathing even more impossible than it already was in the airless humidity._

_What followed was a blur of clashing tempers and blows so violent that the tomb itself seemed to shake beneath the weight of them. For every fist that Cara threw, the Confessor retaliated with a blow in kind. For every punch deflected by one of them, another was deflected by the other. It was, for a few world-shattering seconds, a stalemate; with every breath that Cara found herself unable to draw, the fire in her blood burned hotter, overwhelming everything, overpowering all but the basest, most primal needs. The need to breathe, the need to survive, the need to die. The need to give pain and to receive it. So much. So little. So everything._

_After what seemed like an eternity (and yet still not long enough, never long enough), the Confessor gained control, and Cara’s back struck the now-familiar stone of the wall once again, the force of the impact clashing noisily with the feral grunt that wrenched itself from her throat. She wavered for less than a moment, more overwhelmed by the thrill of combat than by the blow itself, and then she was up again, possessed and empowered, overwhelmed by bloodlust and violence and hate, charging through the Confessor with a raw, primal scream._

_The Confessor loosed a stunned yelp as her back hit stone, but Cara didn’t stop to appreciate the surrender in the sound. She was beyond hearing such things, and certainly beyond relishing them. She was beyond everything but violence and more violence, and so she powered forward again without hesitation._

_This time, she was relentless, using her legs, her arms, every part of her that had any amount of strength for the few half-moments that she had the upper hand, driving forward with blind ambition. It was wonderful, and the rush of blood to Cara’s head (thinner than usual thanks to the lack of air) made it all the more exhilarating._

_She couldn’t get enough of it. Enough of the impact, of the blood, of the physicality, and of the violence. She needed more. Harder, faster. Always harder, always faster, and always more._

_She had lost track of everything. The tomb, the hourglass, the lack of air, the need to die, the world itself, all dissolving around her like the revenants of a dream, as if they’d never been real at all. There was nothing left, nothing at all except Cara and the Confessor and the baying of her heart and her soul for blood and pain, ever more impatient and irrepressible, even as she knew the fractured moment couldn’t possibly endure, even as she knew that her next blow could well be her last._

_And then she was reeling for a second time as the Confessor found her feet and lunged forwards with a clumsy but effective punch right at Cara’s face. It wasn’t much of one, but it was enough to make Cara’s head spin, ears ring, chest constrict. The thrill of taking a blow was almost as wonderful as the thrill of delivering one, and her distraction was just enough to allow her opponent a chance to back into the fight._

_Cara, of course, recovered swiftly, just as she always did. She reacted instinctively, far more efficient than the fire in her veins should have allowed as she took the Confessor by the wrist and drove forwards, pushing, forcing, again and again and again until she was so certain the Confessor would fall to the ground..._

_...but she didn’t._

_Instead (and Cara had no idea how she was standing at all, much less retaining strength and power enough to still compete), she twisted her wrist, yanking Cara helplessly along with her in a move that left her frustratingly off-balance. It was only a moment, less even than that, but it was enough, and she felt her head snap violently back – all blood and bone – as the Confessor swung her free arm around in one of the most brutal backhands Cara had ever received._

_It was glorious._

*

Though part of her had anticipated it, Kahlan couldn’t keep from yelping in surprise when Cara’s head snapped back.

She’d tried to restrain the Mord-Sith a little when it had become obvious that there was about to be an altercation (Kahlan refused to call it a ‘fight’ when she herself was involved, whatever the circumstances), but it had been beyond her power to hold the other woman back. Kahlan had seen Cara lose control of her fighting impulses countless times, both in their travels and under the influence of Zedd’s spell, and had only truly needed to restrain her once, when it had been blindingly obvious that she would do herself some real damage if she wasn’t held down. It pained her, but the necessity of keeping Cara safe outweighed her own discomfort at being the one to hold someone down against their will.

This had certainly been one of those times, but Cara had been utterly out of control, beyond even Kahlan’s admittedly considerable strength. She had broken free from the Mother Confessor’s hold and thrown herself to the floor, and Kahlan had ultimately been forced to give up all of her feints at doing anything at all, lest she end up on the receiving end of Cara’s pain-dealing. It was as apparent as it was soul-destroying that, this time, Cara was beyond restraint.

The rage within her was every bit as all-consuming as it had been when she’d fought Denna, and, in its own way, was even more so. Cara was possessed on a level that even Kahlan, who had now been a witness to her life twice over, had never seen before. It was almost as if, with every moment the air grew thinner, so too did what small shred of humanity had been tentatively blossoming in her, until even her one-time sisters were more human than Cara was.

When she finally recovered herself from the blow (its invisibility doing nothing to keep Kahlan’s jaw from pounding with vicarious pain), Cara was beyond delirious. Her eyes were wide, grin wider, and both dancing with a very real insanity. A small part of Kahlan wanted to go to her as she lunged forwards again, but she knew better than to dare try; if she were to place herself within three feet of Cara in the condition she was in, she would find her head removed by force within seconds, and the Mord-Sith wouldn’t even know she’d done it. It was safer, though doubtless more excruciating, to simply stay safely out of the Mord-Sith’s reach until she wore herself out.

Cara’s fists were flying, wild and blind, and Kahlan could tell that, even within the spell, she was striking nothing but air. Or the lack of air, anyhow, because she could tell that it was getting dangerously low by the increased heaving of Cara’s chest, by the loss of focus on her face, by the way her mouth gaped open for reasons that had nothing to do with the bruises Kahlan was sure would be forming on the in-spell Cara’s jaw.

Less than a moment (just a couple more hopeless swings) later, and suddenly Cara was on her knees, choking and gagging for breath. Had she been anyone else (or else had the situation been less frightening), and if the violence hadn’t still been so clearly in control of her, the scene would almost have been endearing. But it was Cara, and she was dying, soaked through with sweat and tears and exhausted beyond words, and all that just in _this_ world.

What was happening in her mind couldn’t truly injure her, Kahlan remembered Zedd telling her, but it was hard to keep that fact in mind when she was forced to see, clearer than daylight and brighter than a star, the very real physical effects that were plastering themselves to every air-gulping inch of her companion. Whether she was truly dying or not, Cara’s body certainly seemed to believe she was.

“Cara,” Kahlan managed, inching slowly forward when it became apparent that Cara was being held down by something and wasn’t likely to throttle her just for getting too close.

Still moving slowly, ever more cautious with each moment she wasn’t laid to waste, she lowered herself into a half-crouch just behind Cara (assuming that behind was a far safer place than in front, at least for as long as Cara’s fists were still flying with abandon), and placed both hands on her shoulders in a bid at steadying her as the Mord-Sith continued to choke for breath. She looked just about ready to collapse, and yet Kahlan could tell that, had her body been as willing as her mind, she would have been on her feet again and raining down blows on the other world’s Kahlan in less than a heartbeat.

“You need to calm down,” Kahlan said futilely, awkwardly massaging Cara’s shoulders.

Cara was panting, trying in vain to struggle, even as it was obvious that she lacked the strength to do much more than let herself be held in place; unable to do anything to help with her companion’s unfortunate situation, Kahlan simply increased the pace of her ministrations and sucked in a deep breath.

“Richard will be there soon,” she offered quietly. “Just keep breathing. Come on. Forget all this, and just breathe.”

Cara’s entire body went rigid beneath her fingertips then, as if she was summoning every last ounce of strength she possessed. Whatever she was about to do or say clearly meant a great deal to her; more even than the pledge of friendship she’d just give. Some still-cautious part of Kahlan was almost afraid to hear it, even as the vast majority of her wanted nothing more than to know precisely what kind of feeling was stoking the unquenchable fire of Cara’s violent instincts. She leaned in, lips barely touching the curve of Cara’s jaw, whispering, murmuring, breathing, not-quite kissing.

“It’s all right,” she promised. “I’ve got you. I’m here. Whatever it is, I’m here.”

“Stop pretending...” Cara choked in response, barely able to get the words out at all, “... _my life_... means as much... as _yours_.”

Kahlan pulled back, tearing her mouth from where it had rested and staring in blind disbelief at the woman in front of her. Was Cara’s self-worth really so low? Truly?

“Oh, Cara,” she blurted out, before she had the chance to think better of it. “Is that really what you thin—”

She never got the chance to finish, as Cara’s elbow chose exactly that moment to meet her ribs in what was an unmistakably deliberate strike, and Kahlan suddenly found herself winded and in far more pain than a blow from a half-dead woman half her size should ever have caused. Apparently, the other world’s Kahlan had been just as quick as she had to assume that positioning herself behind a violence-possessed Cara was safer than staying in front of her, and was no doubt paying the exact same price for it.

“Ca—” she started, only to find herself cut off as Cara flipped her over her shoulder and onto the ground; it was a purposefully crippling move (albeit more than a little melodramatic for what it was), and it had power enough behind it to leave Kahlan choking.

On her feet now, Cara swayed. Smirked. Staggered. She looked dangerously close to passing out right then and there, and, if Kahlan could only remember which way was up, she would be by her side again to catch her before she did.

The assault, as impressive as it had been, seemed to have drained completely what little had remained of Cara’s strength, and Kahlan watched through swimming vision as she took a long stumbling step backwards, then another, until she collided hard with the back wall. Wincing empathetically, all the while still struggling to clamber back to her own feet (and refusing to admit, even just to herself, that Cara had managed to completely and utterly disarm her), Kahlan watched as Cara’s head slammed back against the solid surface, her body sliding down towards the unconsciousness that was clearly closing in on her.

“Cara!” Kahlan shouted hoarsely, lurching up and limping unsteadily to her side. Cara said nothing, but the rate of her breathing increased as she hit the floor, and Kahlan swore roughly under her breath. “Dammit, Cara! Breathe!”

Ignoring her, Cara let her eyes roll back.

*

_She didn’t remember very much of what happened after that._

_Dimly, as though recalling a once-vivid dream that had been swept up in the edge-dulling winds of time, she remembered the phantom sensation of Kahlan’s bare fingers gripping the sticky leather of her glove as though it was the only thing world keeping her from surrendering to the Keeper._

_More dimly than that, she remembered drawing peace from the sensation, and drawing comfort from that peace. The belief, deluded as she knew it was, that her presence – that she, Cara – was the one thing in all the world keeping the Mother Confessor alive, that she alone was holding her back from the brink of death... it was beautiful. Precious._

_It was as if, even though she’d failed in every possible way, she could pretend for a few more precious moments that she hadn’t. She could pretend, as she felt Kahlan clutching her hand as though it were a source of light and life, that she had somehow done something right, that, by failing to die, she had given Kahlan the gift of her strength to draw power from. She knew it wasn’t true, knew that she was imagining it, knew that Kahlan was alive with the thought of Richard (suspected even that she was imagining Cara’s gloved hand to be the Seeker’s calloused one), but she did not care. Right then, right there, she allowed herself the weakness of pretending she mattered._

_It lasted just a few tortured, shivering breaths... but, to Cara, it was a lifetime._

_And then Richard was there, playing the hero, saving them both in the last moment before death claimed them, charging in with his army just as he always did, and Cara would never forget the surge of jealousy that tore through her at the sight of him. He ignored her, of course, though she’d expected that, and fell to his knees at Kahlan’s side as though he had any place there._

_Kahlan, of course, made no complaint as Richard swept her up into a world-stopping kiss, and Cara felt an agonised groan rip from her throat as the Confessor’s hand fell from her own like a dried leaf on an autumn breeze._

_What right did Richard have, her bereaved heart wanted to know, to lay claim over Kahlan like that? What right did the Seeker have to tear her hand away and replace it with his own when it was_ hers _that had been keeping her alive just moments earlier? What right did the Lord Rahl have to suddenly be the centre of Kahlan’s world when, in the slowing heartbeats before her death, all she had wanted was Cara’s fingers wrapped tight around her own?_

_He was the Lord Rahl, her mind replied. He was the Seeker. He was Richard. And he had all the right in the world._

_With far more effort than she would ever admit to anyone in her present company, Cara tried to pull herself upright. Her head was throbbing, and not just because she was just now remembering the sheer number of times it had taken a punch or a slap or the impact of a solid stone wall over the last few minutes. Though the tomb was flooding now with air, cool and fresh, she still couldn’t breathe, and she wondered how much of that was because her lungs were so desperately starved, and how much was because they were burning white-hot at the sight of Richard and Kahlan._

_A heavy hand dropping down onto her shoulder (in what she supposed was intended as a gesture of support or an offer of help or other such futile nonsense) startled her out of her musings, and she felt her entire body lurch dangerously as she flinched away from the young man who was Richard’s latest companion._

_“I’m fine,” she hissed, spitting the words and hating the way they tasted on her tongue._

_She tried to ignore the way all eyes turned reflexively towards her at the harsh note in her voice. She tried harder, and failed spectacularly, to ignore the way that Kahlan turned her face away immediately thereafter, as if she was ashamed to let their eyes meet._

_It hurt more than the bruises._

_In truth, she was grateful for the nygax. Concerned for the wizard’s safety, of course (though the others definitely didn’t need to know that part), but glad of the distraction it offered. She needed that, needed the promise of conflict to take her mind off the dull pulsing in her head and the way she still couldn’t breathe... and, most of all, the indefinable sensation that tugged at her heart again and again with every moment she was forced to watch the way Kahlan melted into Richard’s embrace._

_As little as she recalled of those last few heartbeats before their rescue, she remembered even less of the battle that followed. Apparently, the lack of air had affected her more profoundly than she had anticipated (and it was most certainly that, she insisted, and not at all the residual thrum of emotion), because she could not see straight. She could hear, just about, the instructions that Richard was giving her, and knew herself to be capable of seeing them carried out, but she could barely see the too-tall figure of the bandage-wrapped wizard, and she was struggling far more than she should’ve been even just to put one foot in front of the other._

_Breathing was pain. Thinking was pain. Just as it had always been, her very existence was pain, too. She should have been dealing with it so much more efficiently than she was, and every inch of her churned at the knowledge that she was supposed to be too strong to surrender to this. It was less than her, and yet she was yielding to it._

_Kahlan (seemingly mended of all her own ill effects by the apparent magical healing properties of Richard’s lips) didn’t notice. Cara didn’t know whether to be grateful or wounded by the fact; it was a relief to know that her weakness remained unseen, especially knowing as she did just how pathetic she had been in the tomb... and yet, her fingers tingled with the phantom memory of Kahlan’s wrapped around them, and her heart (so often denied, but ever present) longed for the fleeting comfort those near-death touches had given._

_Of course, she knew better than to indulge in the part of her that had apparently grown prone to nostalgia, and instead forced herself to embrace the gratitude at not having been discovered. She had spent too long being too weak to allow anyone to see how just pathetic she was feeling now._

_It was over. The Mother Confessor was alive, and that was all that should have mattered – indeed, she amended swiftly, it was all that_ did _matter. Cara should not have been so petulant, so petty and pitiful, as to care about anything beyond that. And she definitely should not have been so rebellious as to think ill of the Lord Rahl, even for a moment, and even under the influence of asphyxiation. Kahlan was his property, his lover. His Confessor, not hers, and Cara let the lingering side-effects of her time in the tomb serve as punishment for her traitorous thoughts._

_Freeing the wizard from the nygax was the easy part. Even half-dead as she was, Cara was more than equipped to perform the tasks asked of her with her usual unparalleled efficiency; it didn’t come without consequences, though, because nothing ever did, and she couldn’t hide her relief when Richard insisted on being the one to chase after the rogue creature (and, with it, the last of its surviving targets) without her._

_Under normal circumstances, she would undoubtedly have insisted – demanded, if she had to – that he let her go with him, to protect him and the altruistic young man who seemed so intent on dying for his father’s sins... but she still couldn’t quite think straight, and she still felt weak. Moreover, she knew from experience that a death-dizzied Mord-Sith was of no use to the Lord Rahl (not even a Lord Rahl as generally useless as Richard), and she had no intention of further humiliating herself by trying to perform a duty that was beyond her ability, however temporarily. Better, she decided, grudgingly, that she remain behind, under pretence of following Richard’s orders, and allow her body the moment’s respite it should not have needed._

_Zedd went with Richard instead, and he and the Seeker both took a moment before their departure to instruct Cara (and Kahlan, though the Confessor needed no such order) to take the time of their absence to ‘recover’ from the ‘ordeal’. Exhausted as she was, though she knew she should have been indignant, Cara couldn’t bring herself to feel anything less than thankful._

_“How are you feeling?” Kahlan asked, the instant they were left alone._

_She seemed a little wearier, now that Richard was gone, and Cara drew strength from the fact that the Confessor was not so perfectly healed as she would have Richard believe. Cara didn’t want her to know how much that meant to her, and so she hid her face behind the tangled mass of her hair._

_“I’m fine,” she said simply, eyes locked on the horizon. “We’re alive, aren’t we?”_

_Apparently, this was precisely the reaction Kahlan had expected, as she huffed out a resigned (if frustrated) breath. “Cara, you don’t have to—”_

_“Kahlan,” she interrupted, hating the way her voice cracked on the last syllable; she should not have been so harsh, she knew, but she could not think. She could not handle so much as another moment of thinking. “It’s over. We’re alive. Stop this.”_

_“Cara...” Kahlan sighed._

_“No,” she replied. “Kahlan, no. Not now. Not this. Not...”_

_She trailed off, swallowing. She knew too well that, if she allowed herself to continue, she would end up saying ‘please’, and she would not allow that._

_Seeming to understand, Kahlan gave an acquiescant nod. “All right,” she conceded, sad but compliant. “Not now.”_

_The act of submission didn’t stop her leaning in, though, and her dark hair tickled Cara’s neck, as if the Confessor was trying to brand her with the mark of a thousand tiny strands, as those beautiful pale fingers squeezed her knee. Nor did it stop Cara’s stomach lurching in reaction to the touch (so unwanted and yet so perfect). It certainly didn’t change the way her lungs burned, or the way her heart was threatening to break free from her chest..._

_...but it did soothe the ache in her soul, and it did silence the ringing in her ears. And, for a slow heartbeat, that was enough._

*

Kahlan flattered herself that she knew Cara. She recognised the little tics and twitches that said Cara wasn’t happy, understood the little flinches that meant she was uncomfortable, knew intimately the shifts in her breathing that said she was conflicted. She was more than familiar with the inner workings of Cara (in body and in mind) by this point in their shared lives, and now more so than ever thanks to the spell that still held the Mord-Sith in its thrall.

She knew Richard, too. She knew how deeply he loved her, how completely he worshipped her, and how inevitable it was that he would have rushed straight to her side without so much as a thought for Cara’s well-being. She knew it all because she had lived through it, though she would have known it equally well if she hadn’t.

Richard was predictable (in many ways, more so even than Cara was) and, though she loved him, even now, Kahlan sometimes wished that he could be a little less attentive and a little more focused. There had been two of them locked in that tomb, and there had been two of them gazing down into the fires of the Underworld, close enough to taste the brimstone... but, though Richard was an expert in spreading out his attentions on the battlefield or when giving speeches, he wasn’t quite so apt at doing so in private.

Of course, she couldn’t judge him too harshly for being as driven by her as he had been; if their positions had been reversed, all those months ago, Richard trapped with Cara and she their lone saviour, she was sure that she would have reacted in exactly the same way. Richard. Always Richard, forever Richard. The world would have melted away, dissolving in on itself until there was nothing in it, nothing but the two of them, reunited and in love. Wasn’t that how the story was supposed to end?

She had changed, though. So very much, and in so very short a space of time that it almost frightened her to think of it.

And suddenly, though she knew it had been scarcely any time at all since her thoughts had been fixated just as exclusively on Richard as his still were on her, she could no longer fathom feeling that way. It had been the only thing she’d known for nearly two years, the only emotion she’d had any room for... and yet, all of a sudden, it was utterly incomprehensible to her. Suddenly – and she didn’t know how or why it had happened, only that it had – Cara was every bit as important as Richard, and she could no longer delude herself into believing that it wasn’t exactly the same.

It had nothing to do with the way that her reflex reaction to those eternally elusive words (‘ _my friend_ ’) falling from Cara’s lips had been to kiss them, to kiss her, and to take her over completely. It had nothing to do with the way her heart had begun to flutter and ache at those soft half-sighs that occasionally left the Mord-Sith when she was particularly relaxed, or the twitching gasps that escaped her when she was feeling the opposite. It had nothing to do with the countless little things that had suddenly become a source of so much affection that it threatened to consume her whole. It didn’t even have anything to do with Richard, who hadn’t done anything wrong at all and probably never would (though she knew he would blame himself even so). Richard was a good man, infinitely too good for a Confessor... and yet her heart cried for Cara.

She had been just as much to blame as he was for the calloused obliviousness that Cara had been subjected to in that moment in the tomb. Her lips, she remembered, had been every bit as eager to seek out Richard’s (despite the lack of air in her lungs protesting the idea) as Richard’s had been for hers. Her fingers, she knew, had been just as quick to trail through Richard’s hair as his had been to tangle in hers. It had been more than mutual, more than synchronicity. It had been the two of them, just as it always had been, and it should never have bothered her. Not in that world, not in this, and not in any world between them. Cara, as deeply as it must have pained her to be the bearer of such constant witness to it, understood.

But that didn’t make it easier to suddenly see from the other side, and it did little to quell the shame that Kahlan felt pulsing through her now, or the pointless anger that insisted on attaching itself to Richard.

If she could have known then what she knew now, Kahlan’s heart cried out, it would have taken Cara by the hand, oblivious to whether the Mord-Sith wanted it or not, and never let go. She would have clung to her as though she was more precious than the air they’d both needed so desperately. Even when Richard had shown up, she wouldn’t have released the other woman’s hand, not until the Keeper stole the last breath from her lungs. She would have let the moment last forever, beyond the threat of death, beyond the airlessness, beyond the world.

But she couldn’t go back, and she couldn’t change what had already happened. Not in this world, not in that, not in any. And besides, it gave her some small amount of solace to know that even the other world’s Kahlan was not blessed with her particular breed of hindsight. She alone in both of their worlds knew what she should have done. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

Where she lay, still sprawled across the floor where she’d collapsed from the imagined lack of air, Cara shifted position; she looked a little uncomfortable, but not much more so than Kahlan would have expected from someone who’d spent the last few minutes splayed out across the floor while reliving her own near-death experience.

Gently, but with enough force that she wouldn’t be argued with, Kahlan pulled her up into a sitting position, one arm draped across her shoulders while the other moved her. Cara, for her part, allowed herself to be moulded with endearing (albeit spell-induced) complicity, and some quietly bemused corner of Kahlan’s mind told her to relish these moments, because she knew that they would never recur once the spell was complete.

It was a comforting thought, and a tragic one at the same time. She truly did miss having Cara with her, hearing her speak, knowing she really was speaking to her and not to some ghost of another woman’s life... but, when this was all over, she knew that she would miss these moments too.

Ignoring the urge to pull Cara into her lap, to keep their two bodies as close as possible, to make up for all the time and all the intimacy they’d lost, to hold her tight while she still could, Kahlan instead indulged the part of her that needed contact with this woman by feathering a simple kiss across her brow.

Cara, for her part, straightened her back with characteristic (if somewhat misplaced) indignation. She didn’t make any remark, though Kahlan could tell that whatever her other self was doing or saying had caused just as much aggravation as her own small gesture would have done if Cara had been conscious to receive it. It amused her (in a bittersweet sort of way) that, for all the vast differences between their two worlds, and for all the simultaneous differences and similarities between their individual Caras, Kahlan was still Kahlan... and, it seemed, in a thousand different worlds, she still knew precisely how to irritate Cara.

As if reading her mind, Cara pursed her lips, brows knitting together in a moody frown.

“About what I said, back in the tomb...” she said, and Kahlan felt her the corners of her own lips lifting in a smile.

“You’re going to deny it,” she told her companion, speaking with a certainty that was far more amusing than it had any right to be; she may not have been blessed by this moment herself, but she knew Cara well enough to know what she’d have to say about it. “You’re going to tell me that you didn’t mean a word of it. You’re going to blame the lack of air, or the fact that you wanted to die, or any one of a thousand other things. You’re going to tell me it was stupid, it was weakness, and to forget that it ever happened.” She smiled, pulling Cara in close, hugging her as tightly as she could. “But I won’t, Cara. Not ever.”

Cara was rolling her eyes, and that gesture alone was enough to tell Kahlan she was right, even before the inevitable flood of denial poured out of her like a rainstorm.

“Forget I said it,” she said, as if on cue, and Kahlan chuckled.

Had it not been so predictable, so excruciatingly obvious, it would almost have been amusing. As it was, the only thing that kept her from telling the oblivious Cara that she had told her so was the knowledge that she wouldn’t be heard even if she did.

“I was delirious from the lack of air,” Cara went on, scowling.

“Of course you were,” Kahlan affirmed, allowing an ironic smile to lift her lips and her heart. “It never happened.”

It was less than a heartbeat later that she realised just how true those words were, how deeply they ran for her, forced as she was to live in a world where none of this would ever be real, and the laughter died gurgling in her throat.


	28. Chapter 28

_In the weeks that followed, Cara found herself gasping for air far more frequently than she could have anticipated._

_Apparently not satisfied by the twisted arrangement he’d made with the Keeper, Darken Rahl had cheated and plotted and schemed his way back to the land of the living, using and abusing the Seeker and his retinue in the process, and happily tearing asunder anything or anyone that stood in his way. For Cara in particular, it was a source of much conflict, though not for any of the reasons her companions might have expected._

_A year ago (and less even than that, if she was honest), Cara would have fallen to her knees and bowed her head in devotion almost before Rahl’s newly-resurrected feet had even touched the forest floor. It would have been simple, straightforward; the Lord Rahl was back in the land of the living, and so her sense of duty would default to him just as it always had. That was how it should have been, however much she knew it would hurt Richard to see her turn away from him so readily._

_And yet, for reasons beyond her understanding, the mere sight of Darken Rahl standing before her in flesh and blood and life and breath, smiling that smile, eyes darting with playful intensity from his brother to his former servant and back again, was enough to flood her lungs with ice-crushed water. Just the thought thought of him, much less the thought of actually serving him again, made her feel physically sick._

_Darken Rahl was not her Lord Rahl, nor would he ever be again; that honour was Richard’s and Richard’s alone, and would be for eternity. A part of her, the part that had admitted to caring for a Confessor when on the brink of death, was glad of the fact, vividly aware of the change it represented within her... but the Mord-Sith within her still felt like a traitor._

_It didn’t help her tumultuous thoughts at all that Rahl refused to leave them alone._

_Cara, for her part, was far too intimate with the way his mind worked to ever truly believe that his interest lay (as he claimed) in being the first to obtain the Stone of Tears and save the world. What petty vendettas Rahl may genuinely have held against the Keeper, whatever real reasons he may have had for preserving the world of the living, his fascination with Richard and his friends was anything but well-intentioned._

_Richard knew it too, and yet he still willingly allowed Rahl to make the decisions and wield the power each time they met. It was pathetic, and every Mord-Sith instinct within Cara screamed to switch her allegiance to the Lord Rahl who still knew what being a leader meant... but she could not. No, she_ would _not. For all his flaws, Richard was the true Lord Rahl, and he was her her friend._

_Of course, it would have done her no good to argue with the Seeker when he ordered her to accompany Kahlan on her journey to see the last surviving night wisp safely to its birthing grounds to see the species survive, and so she didn’t waste her energy trying to remind him that he needed her protection more than ever if he was insistent on keeping Rahl by his side. He wouldn’t listen, anyway, and (if she were honest), she was grateful for the distance from her former master and the tumult in her head._

_It was something of a relief, though she would never admit it; though she could have thought up a thousand more interesting excursions than tagging along with a Confessor who seemed intent on babbling nonstop for the entire duration of their journey, Cara was more than relieved to be free of Rahl, and free of the unwanted churning that rolled through her guts like a bad meal every time she looked at him and wondered why she no longer saw him as her master._

_Blessedly, Kahlan was distracted by the buzzing night wisp, and Cara was mostly left to her own thoughts... at least, as well as she could think with Kahlan’s incessant chattering and the wisp’s relentless chirping. It was a constant, unending drone of unwanted noise, and it took all of Cara’s Mord-Sith training to keep herself from throwing both Confessor and wisp headfirst into the nearest body of water._

_The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on Cara – she, who had borne and birthed Darken Rahl’s child, was now caught in a race against time to save the unborn offspring of a creature he himself had almost slain. Cara had sworn that she would not think of her son again, but it was difficult not to let her mind wander after having faced the very man who had fathered the boy, in the flesh for the first time in nearly a year. And it did not help her nostalgic thoughts, at all, that Kahlan and the damned night wisp were talking so incessantly about babies._

_It was maddening, frustrating, infuriating... and it was dangerously close to breaking Cara’s heart._

*

Kahlan remembered the night wisps, of course, and the effect they’d had on Cara. She remembered the way Cara had looked at her when they’d reunited, remembered how the awe radiating from the Mord-Sith’s eyes had cut through the dull throbbing of her twisted ankle, remembered the near-dazzling joy that had coursed through her like a second pulse at the realisation that Cara – _Cara_ – was standing in front of her and talking about beauty. She remembered it all, every detail, and watched it again now, amplified a hundredfold in Cara’s spell-blind eyes.

There was an underlying sorrow in Cara here, though, of a kind that Kahlan was sure she hadn’t seen before. Barely there at all, but just enough to draw yet another tangible line between the Cara whose life she was a witness to and the Cara that was hers.

Hers was a Cara who hadn’t quite been able to overcome her past, who was still living the life that her mistresses had beaten into her, despite her best efforts to leave it behind. The other Cara was softer for having been raised alongside a friend who had truly cared for her... and yet, here, with Kahlan and the night wisp, it was that world’s Cara who was hard and cold and, at least for the first part of the journey, almost bitter.

Her Cara had been aggravated, yes, but she had understood the significance of what Kahlan had been doing, how important it was that the wisp be kept alive through her companionship, and had accepted it with little complaint beyond the grinding of her teeth and the clenching of her fists.

This world’s Cara seemed to be taking every word as a personal insult, twitching and biting off jibes and complaints at every opportunity she could find. She was unhappy, Kahlan could tell, deeply and on a level that could not be explained away by mere irritation, and it was only through the knowledge of how things would end, the joy and the rapture and the beauty that she knew would spill from Cara like a waterfall, that Kahlan was able to keep from worrying about her.

Where she would normally have been overwhelmed by the desire to draw Cara into an embrace, to take strength from her closeness just as readily as she was offering comfort in kind, this time (and for reasons that eluded her) she felt no such pull. She was content, for once, to simply sit back and watch the myriad emotions as they flickered across Cara’s troubled features, so much more telling than the words that escaped her, even as the grumbles gave way to grudging acceptance, and then, at long last, to shimmering joy at the realisation that she could understand the wisps’ enigmatically magical language.

The shift in Cara had happened so subtly that it was only now Kahlan realised how much of a change it truly marked. This was a Cara willing to let her expression say things her voice could not, a Cara unafraid of some unknown punishment if she allowed a moment of fleeting feeling to touch her features. It had been a gradual transition, Kahlan was sure, but watching her now, drinking down the beauty in her face as it lifted and flickered with irrepressible emotion, it was so natural that she could barely bring herself to remember that, just a few short hours earlier, she’d been watching a Cara whose only expression had been one of stark detachedness and cutting cruelty.

If there was one thing to be gleaned from this damned spell (beyond her own confused feelings), Kahlan supposed it was her newfound appreciation for those subtle nuances, those barely-noticed parts of Cara that she had somehow come to take for granted. It had been a very long time since an uncomfortable frown or a wide-eyed smile had been cause for surprise, which made it hard for Kahlan to remember that they had once been completely unheard of. The change had come to pass so gradually, those tiny nuances becoming almost second nature to them both, that Kahlan had never stopped to realise just how great an evolution they marked.

She had no idea how long she sat there, just watching the story unfold across Cara’s face, drowning in the emotions and the expressions and the shifting of eyes and lips and the twitching of muscles that said so much, hearing but not really listening as Cara talking with endearing reluctance about feelings and compassion with the dying night wisp. It could have been minutes, or it could have been years, and it wouldn’t have mattered; it could have been a lifetime, and Kahlan would still crave more.

She didn’t need to hear the breathless exclamation of “the babies survived”, the words tumbling clumsily from Cara’s lips, unbidden and unheeded, nor did she need to hear the way her breath caught in her throat, rough with emotion. She didn’t need to hear anything, because she saw it all in her face. It was right there, in the way her mouth fell open, in the tears that formed but didn’t fall from her eyes. In every part of her. Kahlan saw everything, and, with enough force to almost send her reeling, she realised that the words had never mattered.

None of them did. It didn’t matter that Cara had never been able to tell her how she felt, and it didn’t matter that some other Cara in some long-abandoned world had. They were just words, useless and pointless, however pretty they may have been. The lack of them did not take away what Cara felt; quite the opposite, in fact. Right here and right now, with the night wisps, her emotions were so much more poignant for having been left unvoiced... and so much more real for having been felt without being spoken.

Everything that Kahlan had ever cared about, everything she was slowly coming to discover that she loved in Cara, it was all there on her face. Hers, for the taking. This moment, this precious moment of unabashed _joy_ in the spell-shrouded eyes of a woman who had forgotten the meaning of the word a lifetime ago... this had been hers. This, she remembered. Vividly and clearly, and, even as Cara opened her mouth to speak, even as Kahlan knew exactly what she would say, she knew that all the words in both their worlds would never be enough to say even a quarter of what she saw blazing like molten gold on Cara’s face.

“It was,” Cara whispered, reverent, glowing brighter than sunlight, “the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”

*

_Kahlan hadn’t said anything. But then, of course, she hadn’t needed to._

 _The Mother Confessor never needed to say anything to make her point, really, and this time was no different. Cara had known it immediately, had seen it in the way Kahlan kept sneaking casual glances at her when she thought she wasn’t looking (though how was it, Cara wondered, that Kahlan still hadn’t figured out that she was_ always _looking?). It was, she supposed, a credit to the woman that she didn’t speak the words aloud, but, by the relentlessness of her affectionate gaze as it fixed on whatever part of Cara was in her line of sight, she might as well have done._

_Kahlan was proud of her._

_Not for saving the baby wisps, of course. If it had been as simple as that, Cara wouldn’t have been the least bit perturbed by the excessive attention. It had been arduous, difficult, and exhausting; as a result Cara rather felt that she might have earned Kahlan’s approval for seeing it done. She doubted, though she knew the thought was not unlike blasphemy, that Kahlan would have been able to complete the task herself with only the mother’s fatality, even without a conveniently twisted ankle on which to lay the blame. Richard certainly wouldn’t have been able to see it done, and, though Cara suspected Zedd might have been able to, she was also sure that he wouldn’t have stopped bragging about it either._

_But it wasn’t about that, nor was it about the effortless way that Cara had come to understand the wisps’ language as easily as her own. Kahlan wasn’t proud of her for any of the countless achievements she had every right to be impressed by. Oh, no. That would have been too logical, too_ sensible _for the emotion-fuelled Confessor._

_No. Kahlan was proud of the way Cara had cried._

_She hated that unforgivable lack of control. She hated that what she’d witnessed at the wisps’ birthing ground had so completely affected her, and she hated that she had let it. She should have been stronger; she should have been more like her former sisters, and all the more so coming so soon after the resurrection of Darken Rahl._

_Whatever she felt about him, however her loyalties had changed, it was the rule of Darken Rahl that had made her what she was, and it was under his direction that she had become powerful and brave and strong and all that was Mord-Sith. She may have grown to hate the man, may have come to wish him dead just as fervently as she had wished the same of Denna, may have renounced his name and his title and everything he had once been to her... but he had made her, and she should have been strong enough to realise that. It frightened her that she wasn’t, and she could not understand it._

_“Cara,” Kahlan murmured when they stopped for the night, the first word from either of them in more hours than Cara cared to count._

_“What is it, Kahlan?”_

_Cara was not in the mood for late-night small-talk, but she was slowly coming to realise that she couldn’t deny the Mother Confessor anything. Not even now, when she knew she should._

_She didn’t need to turn around to know that Kahlan was chewing at her lower lip, with the thoughtful look on her face that Cara knew too well by now, debating how best to express her thoughts in a way that Cara could understand. Cara wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her until her minimal brains fell out, to demand that she just spit the words out if she was going to say them, or else leave her in peace to get some rest if she was not... but, for all her desire to squash this moment of maybe-not, she could not bring herself to do anything at all. The part of her that wasn’t simply too tired to think insisted it was because she didn’t have the energy to argue, but the rest of her knew better than to believe that._

_“Are you all right?” Kahlan asked at long last, and Cara could tell that it wasn’t the question she truly wanted to ask._

_Humouring her nonetheless, she quirked an eyebrow._

_“Shouldn’t I be the one asking you that question?” she replied, and was too exhausted to wonder why there was no derision in the question. “I’m not the one with a twisted ankle.”_

_“No,” Kahlan conceded with a gently self-deprecating chuckle. “But you’ve been through a lot, too. I thought you might want—”_

_“—to talk about it?” Cara snorted; the mere notion was insane in itself, and it became even more so spoken aloud. “Don’t be absurd, Kahlan. It’s done. It’s finished. The babies survived.”_

_The words alone were almost enough to bring her back to the brink of tears, and she was thankful for the cover of darkness that kept Kahlan from seeing how wet her eyes were._

_Kahlan sighed. “I wasn’t talking about the mission, Cara.”_

_Somehow, Cara had suspected as much, though every fibre of her being had prayed that she was wrong. She didn’t want to talk about this. Not now, with her heart so raw and exposed and bleeding out with emotion that she should never have allowed herself to feel. If Kahlan said what she was so obviously thinking, if she even so much as breathed the name, Cara would be lost, and she did not have the strength left within her at that moment to find her way back again._

_“It must be difficult,” the Confessor said, and Cara gritted her teeth. “Seeing him alive again. Having him back... and with Richard.” She sighed. “And now this as well, with the wisp. You just... you seemed so...”_

_She trailed off, looking uneasy, as though she didn’t know how best to proceed without getting her head bitten off; Cara, meanwhile, willed her heart to stop pounding lest it shatter her chest. It hurt. Her chest_ hurt _._

_“I just thought that you might need a friend,” Kahlan finished at last. “That’s all.”_

_Cara closed her eyes. Swallowed hard. Wished that she didn’t appreciate Kahlan’s sympathy quite as much as she did, wished that the tears weren’t so close to the surface. Wished, beyond them both, that a single glance at her companion wouldn’t be enough to break the dam._

_She wanted to take offense, to growl, hiss, snarl, lash out like the wild animal she still was, like the chained beast that was trying so hard to tear free from her. She wanted to be indifferent and calloused and everything she had been trained to be for all her life, wanted to be Mord-Sith. Again, just the mere thought of her sisters and her former life and her service to Darken Rahl caused her stomach to churn almost beyond her tentative control... and yet, inexplicably, she wanted those things back so desperately that she could taste them._

_Her chest had never hurt like this when_ he _was the Lord Rahl. Why did she hate him so?_

_“Cara?”_

_Kahlan was leaning across, breath warm against her cheek, and the heat of it only exacerbated Cara’s violent discomfort._

_“Don’t,” she heard herself whisper, aching down to her bones._

_It didn’t surprise her in the least that the Mother Confessor ignored her entreaty (close enough to a plea that it made them both shudder), and she felt her eyes slide painfully shut as Kahlan leaned in, breath coming faster. Too fast. Too much. Too Kahlan._

_“Cara,” she repeated. “It’s all right, I’m here.”_

_“Don’t,” Cara repeated, and now it truly was a plea. “Kahlan..._ please _.”_

_She’d never said that word to Kahlan before. Indeed, she wasn’t entirely sure she’d said it at all since she’d cast off her unwanted childhood and taken up the leathers of a Mord-Sith. Well, perhaps she might have uttered it ironically once or twice, but certainly not like this. Not in the form of a real, honest plea. And yet it had slipped from her pain-saturated tongue now as though she had been saying it all her life._

_It should have made her feel weak, just as every other thing she was thinking and feeling and doing just then should have made her feel weak. But it didn’t. It didn’t make her feel strong, either, or powerful; it didn’t give her solace the way her agiels did, or courage the way her bloodlust did, but it didn’t make her feel pathetic either. It didn’t make her feel anything, really. Just desperate... and she had been feeling that way for so much longer than the duration of one syllable._

_Perhaps, she mused through the rolling of her stomach and the pounding of her heart and the indefinable pain in her chest... perhaps it was possible to be something in between weakness and strength, something that wasn’t truly either. Perhaps she didn’t always have to be one or the other or nothing at all. Perhaps she could simply be Cara, and let that mean whatever it may._

_The thought gave her some comfort, alien as it was, and she pulled in a shuddering breath as Kahlan gently leaned back and studied her in the hazy moonlight. It was almost steadying, the look in the Mother Confessor’s eyes. Sympathy, but respect._

_“Whatever you need,” Kahlan said, and Cara knew she meant it completely. “Anything.”_

*

“I need to rest,” Cara murmured, and, though it was scarcely audible, the lie was obvious. “And so do you.”

Kahlan chuckled, resting a hand on the other woman’s back.

“I’m not going to argue with that,” she agreed, well aware of how tired she was, “but someone has to stop you hurting yourself again. You’re too dangerous to be trusted on your own, Cara. If you were here, instead of stuck in your own head, you’d agree.”

Her other self, it seemed, was less prone to ironic remarks, as Cara relaxed after a moment and said nothing further.

The context of the discussion, brief as it had been, led Kahlan to assume that Cara’s breathing would soon even out into the gentle rhythm she’d come to recognise as in-spell sleep; she could tell they had made camp, knew that it was late, and yet she could tell just as well that Cara was not surrendering to sleep at all. In fact, nothing seemed to change at all; Cara’s eyes didn’t close, nor did she move. She was more relaxed than she had been a moment ago, calm and seeming almost at peace, but she was definitely not resting, and Kahlan reflexively felt the hand at her back begin to massage the leather-covered flesh there.

“If you need rest,” she chastised the stubborn Mord-Sith, “you should rest.”

Cara grunted, shifting restlessly, but she seemed to settle down after a moment, at least for a little while. She didn’t relax, not really, even as the minutes began bleeding into each other, but she seemed fractionally more comfortable, and Kahlan allowed herself to be content with simply relishing the feel of cool leather against her fingers and the knowledge that Cara wouldn’t protest the contact for as long as she was under the spell. And perhaps, she could only hope, even after that.

It didn’t last more than a handful of almost-perfect minutes. But then, really, Kahlan hadn’t expected that it would. And, this time, a handful of almost-perfect minutes was enough.

Cara sighed; the sound sent a worried shiver rippling down Kahlan’s spine, and she didn’t really know why. It wasn’t the first time her companion had sighed like that, and it certainly wasn’t the first time she’d voiced so much feeling with such a tiny little sound, and yet that particular stuttering breath carved a path through Kahlan’s chest as though it was somehow Cara’s divine right to assault the innermost chambers of her heart. Kahlan felt her fingers tighten, fisting the leather at Cara’s back, thumb still caressing the ever-tautening muscles through the slippery red material.

Another sigh. Softer, this time. A little closer to pain.

Beneath her flexing fingers, Kahlan felt Cara’s back tense. Sharp, almost violent. She held rigid for a moment, then relaxed. Her jaw mirrored the motion, turning a deathly white under shattering pressure as it clenched and unclenched in spasmodic rhythm, and Kahlan found herself simultaneously worried and mesmerised by the strange juxtaposition of it. Something was happening, and Kahlan only wished she could determine whether it was an actual threat or the product in Cara’s tortured thoughts.

“Kahlan,” Cara breathed at last, and it sounded as though uttering the name had cost her everything she possessed.

“I’m here,” Kahlan replied, not knowing what else to say. She rubbed Cara’s back again, feeling the muscles twitch. “I’ve got you. I’m here, and I’ve got you.”

“Kahlan,” she repeated, eyes wide and wet, even as she made a visible effort to keep them hidden behind the damp curtain of her hair. “Kahlan, I need...”

Kahlan pulled her in. “Anything.”

Cara whimpered. She actually _whimpered_ , and the sound was so small and so unguarded that it stole Kahlan’s breath.

“Kahlan,” she managed again, trembling in her arms. “I need you.” 

“You have me,” Kahlan said, and she had never meant anything more.

“I need you...” Cara repeated, “...to be my friend.”

*

_She didn’t need to say any more than that. Three small words, not even a real sentence, and Kahlan understood._

_There were no offers of comfort, no murmured platitudes falling like rain from the Confessor’s lips, no hollowed-out promises of compassion or understanding. There was nothing but the impulsive sensation of Kahlan’s arms wrapping tight around her, the warmth of the other woman’s body suddenly surrounding every inch of her, and Cara felt her chin tucking itself under the crook between neck and shoulder as though she had always belonged there._

_It wasn’t comfort she wanted, nor was it empathy. It was contact. She wanted to be touched. Held. Loved in the only way that a Mord-Sith could understand, the way of the flesh._

_Kahlan couldn’t give her everything she wanted, and she certainly couldn’t give her everything she needed, but she could give her enough to fill the churning emptiness in her belly, and enough to still the roaring of blood in her ears. She could slow the pounding of her heart with the touch of her hand, and she could ease the pain in her chest with her presence. She could hold her, and press her lips to her forehead and her cheek and every other part she could possibly reach. She could pour out her soul, her friendship, her tactile Confessor’s love... and she could remind Cara, more and more with each breath shared between them, that true devotion was so much more than the empty servitude that Darken Rahl had bred in her._

_Kahlan didn’t ask why Cara had surrendered to the torrent of her emotions, or why she had bent to the will of her need to be held. Though she must have been curious, she didn’t ask why Cara had allowed herself to show weakness in asking for a friend, now, after so long spent fighting it. The Mother Confessor couldn’t know, and she couldn’t possibly understand, but she didn’t ask. Her silence made Cara respect her all the more._

_The ache, the need for physical contact wasn’t new. It was a craving that Cara had felt on countless occasions, both before and since she had joined the Seeker and his retinue. It was simply the way Mord-Sith did things; Cara had been raised all her life to embrace the physical and ignore the emotional. As soon as something became physical, it was easy to pretend the thoughts and feelings and other absurdly abstract notions didn’t exist. Physicality was familiar; it was easy, and it was comfortable, and Cara was practiced in the art of losing herself to it. It was everything that feelings were not... and yet, somehow, the comfort she was drawing now from the closeness that Kahlan offered, so selfless and undemanding, was anything but physical._

_It should have bothered her. It should have made her angry, should have made her lash out at Kahlan. It should have made her hate the Confessor, because it was her fault she was_ feeling _instead of_ being _. There were so many things, so many countless brutal Mord-Sith things that the embrace should have evoked in her... but it did nothing. She felt nothing. She felt... she felt..._

_She felt_ content _, she realised. Relaxed, calm, right down to her soul for the first time in what felt like a dozen lifetimes. She felt as though Kahlan’s arms would keep her safe from the bad dreams she knew would follow (even as she refused to admit she was afraid of them). All she needed to do was close her eyes, for less even than a heartbeat, and his face was there. Smiling, but ever commanding. Lord Rahl. Her Lord Rahl._

_Kahlan – her arms, her warmth, her strength, her friendship – would banish him. She had to, because Cara could not._

_Darken Rahl did not deserve the title of ‘Lord Rahl’, she thought, and her mind returned unbidden to the night wisps. So many of them, so young and so small and so helpless. So beautiful. Beautiful beyond anything Cara had ever seen, beyond anything she would ever see again, and certainly beyond anything she deserved to see. More beautiful even than she’d been able to express to Kahlan – Kahlan, of all people, who could see and read the beauty so much deeper than her words, and whom she knew still would never be able fathom the sheer depth of what Cara had seen. Wisps. Life. Beauty. All things that should have meant nothing to her, and yet things she could not banish from her thoughts._

_In an instant, and without a moment’s hesitation, Darken Rahl would have destroyed every last one of those things._

_A jolting noise, almost keening, broke from Cara’s throat, and she buried her face deeper into the sanctuary of Kahlan’s skin, as though its alabaster shelter would somehow mask the noise... as though, if Kahlan didn’t hear it, it would never have existed._

_“I’m here,” Kahlan breathed in her ear, reacting to the sound, and Cara felt the edges of herself begin to crack._

_Her loyalties should have been simple; she had served Darken Rahl her entire life, and now that he was back in the world of the living, she should have returned to his side. Perhaps, she supposed, Richard’s hold on her might have been enough to overcome those shifting loyalties, but they should existed nonetheless. Even if it had only been for a moment, even if it had just been a lone tainted heartbeat of fleeting uncertainty, she should have felt_ something _for the man who had been her Lord Rahl for as long as she had been a Mord-Sith, whose child she had borne, whose heir was her son._

_There should have been something left of that loyalty, that devotion, that service. A shiver, a flicker, a ghost of a memory. Something. But all she felt was sickness and spite and sorrow._

_And she couldn’t stop thinking of the baby wisps. How fragile they were, and how beautiful. How completely they had trusted her. How Zedd, the wisest one of them all, had once told her that she would never be able to see them alone because they would never have put their trust in her. How she’d felt wounded by the fact (even then) and hated him for being so prejudiced, for presuming to know so much about who and what she was when he didn’t know the first thing about her._

_The wizard had been wrong. It should have filled her with sadistic glee, but it didn’t. She could spend a lifetime gloating at all the ways the wizard had been wrong, but it would not touch even a fragment of the euphoria she’d felt as the birthing grounds had spawned with baby wisps... and it would not touch even a breath of the wrongness that had radiated from Darken Rahl as he had destroyed their brethren._

_Her loyalty to Richard had not been borne of bitterness towards Darken Rahl, at least not exactly; it had been borne of a future that she and the Seeker had witnessed together, with Rahl as dead as everyone else she’d ever known. True, he had brought that future into being, but it was not by his hand that her sisters had been slain and the world thrown into chaos. It was not enough to justify what she felt._

_She should not have felt bile rising in her throat at just the thought of him, should not have felt her lungs constrict as she remembered the touch of his flesh against hers, the way he’d smiled as she serviced him, again and again and again. She should not have felt the pain in her chest._

_And yet she did. She could not think of him without feeling ill, and she could not picture him without feeling pain._

_Because, she realised, it was all his fault. The baby wisps would grow up without their mother because of him. Her own son was without his, too, because of him. Cara had always believed that she was the one responsible for tearing apart families and friendships and bonds of blood and kin; she had always believed that she was the one who caused damage beyond repair. She had hated herself for everything she had done – for depriving the Mother Confessor of her sister, and Dennee of her child – and yet her deeds were as nothing to those of her one-time master._

_Of course she hated him, she realised in a burst of staggering clarity. How could she not? He was a monster._

_Had he always been one? How had she not seen it? How had she never noticed it before now? What did that make her?_

_She groaned. Confused, overcome. Emotional, nauseous, raw with pain that pulsed beyond the physical. Breathing became impossible, even as she tried to drown herself in the sweet honey-kissed scent of Kahlan’s skin where it pressed so tightly against her own. Her heart was beating loudly enough to wake every creature within a thousand leagues, and each pulse caused the pain in her chest to increase, until she could not bear it. She would die here. She wanted to die here._

_Feeling her discomfort, Kahlan tightened her arms around her, the gesture almost imperceptible. Unable to speak, Cara whimpered. Once, then again and again until it was all she could hear, all she could do. Crying, though she shed no tears. Dry and desperate, the pain wrenching through them both, and she could not stop._

_She did not want to stop._

_Kahlan breathed with her, rocking her, humming a nameless tune in her ear. Offering comfort, as best she could, without words._

_It helped._

*

Kahlan knew exactly when morning came. She knew when they resumed their journey, and she knew when they reunited with Richard and Zedd. Even though Cara uttered less than three words in all that time, she still knew. Just as she knew, and not simply because she could see the impatient irritation pasting itself across Cara’s weary-looking features, that they’d been forced to hear the exhaustive story of how Darken Rahl had escaped from Richard’s custody. That part, she knew by the irrepressible relief that suddenly coloured Cara’s cheeks (as hard as she was visibly trying to conceal it), bathing in a heated flush.

“I’m fine,” she muttered, and Kahlan smirked; apparently her other self had been just as aware of the reaction as she was. “You’re not my mother, Kahlan, stop treating me like a child.”

“She’s only doing it because she cares,” Kahlan said, smiling, drinking deep of Cara’s indignation. “And because you act like one.”

Cara’s only response was a noisy growl, followed immediately by a lapse into sullen silence. Kahlan laughed despite herself, and couldn’t quite keep herself from tousling the pouting Mord-Sith’s hair. For all her characteristic stoicism, Cara truly did have the petulance of a small infant sometimes, and Kahlan was only now coming to realise just how endearing that quality was in her. She had seen so many different sides of Cara in so short a time – the pain, the sex, the growth, the humanity, and a thousand other nameless things – and this, at last, was pure simplicity.

Unbidden, something rose up within Kahlan at the thought, and at the sight of Cara’s mutinous scowl. It was strange but not alien, powerful but not all-devouring, and warm. Warm, like a relaxing bath or a freshly-baked loaf of bread. Warm, in all the ways that were designed to make a house into a home. Warm, like Richard’s eyes, like Zedd’s smile, but never like Cara. Not once, despite all the new things she was feeling for the other woman, had she felt that. This. Warmth. Home.

Not for the first time, she found herself overwhelmed, almost knocked backwards, by the need to kiss the spellbound Mord-Sith until they both passed out from lack of air, to pull her close and to worship every part of her with her lips, her hands, her body and her soul. That barely-present shimmering feeling was overpowering, unexpected and unbidden, and every last inch of her ached to express it – to really and truly express it, and to have its plaintive cry heard, beyond all doubt, by the only person in the world who mattered.

It wasn’t enough, all of a sudden, that Richard knew, or that he would no doubt tell Zedd, or even that Kahlan herself knew. It was Cara who needed to know. Cara, who had never known love, who had never known home. Cara, who had insisted on being thrust into a world that had never even existed in the vain hope that she might be able to capture even just a fleeting fragment of either of those things. Cara, who needed love, and home, more than anyone else Kahlan had ever known in all her life.

“Come back,” Kahlan heard herself whisper, not for the first time. “Come home.”

*

_They had been travelling for less than a week after the incident with the night wisps and Darken Rahl’s unfortunate escape from their custody (as welcome to Cara as it was unwelcome to Richard; she wasn’t sure she could have withstood any more time in the company of the man who had made her), tracing the Seeker’s compass with pinpoint precision, when they realised they were being followed._

_No. Not followed, exactly. It was cleverer than that. They were being hunted._

_Cara suspected their stalker was Mord-Sith long before they ever caught that first telltale glimpse of too-tight leather and a tighter braid, and certainly before any of her slow-witted companions realised the same. She recognised the pattern (indeed, she herself had spent entire days of her life doing exactly the same thing). She knew the style, knew the method, and knew exactly what it meant. And the fact that she knew it so very intimately was precisely the reason why she didn’t tell Richard._

_Perhaps there was more of Darken Rahl still spinning through her mind than she would care to admit, or perhaps she still couldn’t quite bring herself to believe what the night wisp had told her – that Richard and his companions truly did care for her as deeply as her aching soul insisted she’d come to care about them. If they knew, her frightened heart cried, if they even suspected for a moment that there was still enough of the Mord-Sith in her to recognise one of her former sisters without so much as a ghost of their presence? The thought of what they would do (or, somehow worse, what they would_ think _) was utterly paralysing._

_It pained her (and she supposed that was a kind of growth as well) to keep secrets from them – from Richard, specifically, and not just because he was the Lord Rahl – but she could not (would not) take the risk. She couldn’t chance having them look at her and see all the things she had once been. They would know she had spent time thinking of Rahl, and they would think she was considering returning to serve him. They would think she had missed him._

_They would think the worst of her. She believed it with all her heart, and her conflicted soul simply couldn’t take the thought of it. And so, despite her every instinct telling her that this was not the way to handle such a volatile situation, she said nothing of what she knew._

_Besides, she told herself, they would figure it out for themselves soon enough... and Cara wouldn’t even regret passing up the chance to say ‘I told you so’._

_It was another two days before the others finally realised what they were dealing with. Two days, during which time Richard insisted on acting as though they didn’t know they were being followed, in the vain hope that their would-be assassin might make a mistake and reveal themselves. Cara, for her part, had been forced to bite her tongue more times than she could count in those two days to keep from pointing out the absurdity of that._

_As she expected, the very moment Richard made the discovery, all eyes turned to her._

_“Mord-Sith,” he said, and it was almost a question._

_Cara tried not to cringe. “It seems likely, yes.”_

_There was sympathy in Kahlan’s eyes, and Cara almost expected her to ask (in that frustrating yet not-entirely-hated way she had) whether Cara was all right. She didn’t, though, and Cara was glad of that. Because she was certainly not all right, and she didn’t want to have to admit that. Not now. Not to them. And, above all, not with one of her former sisters out for their blood, perhaps even under the orders of Darken Rahl himself. That thought was a deeply unpleasant one, but Cara found enough strength within herself to wait until Kahlan was distracted by Richard before allowing herself to shudder._

_“Mord-Sith,” Kahlan mused quietly, echoing Richard’s words with her own particular brand of worry. “Do you suppose Rahl’s already started recruiting himself an army?”_

_“Probably,” Cara said, trying to sound careless even as her heart squeezed and the pain returned to her chest. “There aren’t many who are aware of the fact that Richard is the true heir to D’Hara, since he turned down the throne, and Lor—” She cut herself off, almost gagging. “—Darken Rahl would, no doubt, do everything in his power to secure himself the services of those who aren’t.”_

_Richard nodded thoughtfully, studying her. Cara forced her face to remain impassive, even as she knew what was coming next. She had to be careless, had to be emotionless and expressionless and completely Mord-Sith. Now, more than ever before, she had to be what she had always been, lest he see how close she was to unravelling._

_He smiled, and the pain in her chest reached its breaking point. Had it not been Richard standing before her just then, the one man in all the world she still couldn’t show weakness in front of, she would have allowed herself to collapse._

_Subtly, Kahlan squeezed her arm. Inexplicably, breathing became a little easier._

_“Care for a little family reunion?” asked Richard, and his eyes darted in the general direction of their none-too-clever stalker._

_Cara could think of nothing in the world she wanted less._

*

When Cara stiffened beside her, muscles taut and limbs locked, Kahlan allowed herself a brief moment of hope. She knew, of course, that Cara was simply preparing herself for a perceived altercation, and yet there was something in the intensity of her gaze this time that let her believe (even just for a moment) that she was finally pulling herself out of the spell. Barely existent, but there nonetheless, it gave Kahlan just the barest flicker of hope that somehow, even though she knew it was impossible, they might both find themselves spared the inevitable tragic ending of this broken story.

She would have given anything to make it that, and not just another confrontation with yet another unwanted assailant, but she couldn’t. As much as she may have wished to, she couldn’t do anything. She’d promised Zedd that she wouldn’t try to bring Cara out of the spell by force, and she had more than enough experience with the futility of hope to expect for a second that her pointless wishes would have the desired effect here anyway. Cara’s fate was in her own hands (or the hands of a Cara in a world that didn’t exist), and Kahlan could only watch and pray to a Creator as unresponsive as her companion that, by some miracle, this time would be different.

It wasn’t, though. Of course it wasn’t.

As Cara lowered herself into a preparatory crouch, every muscle going wire-tight, Kahlan found herself crippled by the sheer weight of disappointment that crashed down over her.

She had known. She’d known this couldn’t possibly be the end, and yet she’d allowed herself to anticipate it. She couldn’t help wondering, as she fought to steady herself while still pressing her hand supportively (and, if she was honest, with just a touch of restraint as well) at the small of Cara’s back, just how much of a fool she must have been to have truly thought otherwise, even for a moment. There was no place for hope in either of their lives. They both knew that.

“Cara,” she said, concerned and cautious. “Cara. Whatever you’re doing, don’t. Just turn around and come home.”

Typically Cara, her companion’s only reaction was to lurch away with a quickness that left Kahlan helpless in its wake and take a spectacular swan-dive across the room.

“Dammit!” Kahlan cursed, unable to keep the expletive from escaping her lips, and lunged after her. “Stop this, right now!”

She didn’t really expect a response, and, on that count, at least she wasn’t disappointed. As unaware as she ever was when Kahlan tried to chastise her (and not just when under the influence of powerful magic), Cara picked herself up into a cautious crouch and glared down at the ground with such blazing malice that Kahlan couldn’t help thinking it was a miracle that the room didn’t catch fire.

As was the case with so many moments of intensity, however, it didn’t last more than a few short moments, and Kahlan watched with dissociated helplessness as Cara’s expression flickered and shifted, the anger and intensity bleeding out of her like spilled paint, to be replaced by a whitewash of shock. Wan and pallid, but at the same time very real, it was the kind of stunned disbelief that couldn’t be replicated, and certainly couldn’t be faked. Cara was staggered, stunned on a level that Kahlan had never seen in her before, and, though she knew she should be used to this softer version of Cara, her breath caught in her throat at the sight regardless.

Cara, by contrast, was breathing hard, and Kahlan could see that she was fighting with everything she had to reach within herself and bring back some shade of the anger, some flash of the intensity, something that would place her back in control of this situation, whatever it was... but (and Kahlan could feel the frustration pouring from her in waves) there simply was no reserve to fall back on, nothing left to take, and it seemed to be suddenly all Cara could do to remain upright at all as she stared, transfixed, at the floor.

“Cara?” Kahlan murmured, and the anxiety almost choked her as she lowered a hand, despite knowing the danger in touching Cara when she was like this, to rest on her shoulder. “Cara, what is it?”

In all the time they’d known each other, Kahlan was fairly certain that Cara had never looked more flabbergasted than she did just then, and it was only the knowledge that it would do no good that kept her from reaching out and pulling the Mord-Sith away from the imaginary scene playing out before her, shielding her from whatever horrors she was seeing. She wanted to protect her from this, wanted to do anything that could possibly banish even some part of the terrifying helplessness that was so clear in her too-vacant eyes.

She wanted to do anything, everything, _something_... but she couldn’t. It was beyond her power to move, much less speak, and there was nothing she could do to help, anyway. So, difficult as it was, she simply watched, feeling her own rising helplessness reaching with ice-touched talons to strangle her heart and her throat as Cara finally gave a name to the thing that had rendered her so utterly powerless.

“ _Dahlia_?”


	29. Chapter 29

_“You know her?”_

_The question was so absurd, so completely and typically Richard, that Cara almost laughed. And perhaps, had she not felt as though the world itself was about to come crashing down on her head, she might have._

_Instead, afraid that too sudden a movement would cause the ground to fall out from underneath her and leave her flat on her back (not the best position to find herself in with Dahlia so close and Richard right behind her), she slowly climbed to her feet. Carefully, cautiously. Watching as Dahlia moved with her, inch for inch and breath for breath. Just as she always had when they were sisters, bound together in loyalty and devotion._

_She knew that her weakness was showing, knew that her expression was unguarded in a way it had never been in as long as she and Dahlia had known each other, knew that everyone within a hundred leagues would be able to see her heart, but still she was unable to tear her gaze from the woman in front of her, the woman she’d thought she would never see again. The woman whose very presence was enough to cast into shadow everything she’d been struggling with for so long._

_“We served together for many years,” she explained, at long last._

_Dahlia’s expression didn’t change, but Cara could see, just like she had always been able to see, the reaction in her. There was honest disappointment there, shot through with real hurt, as though she had expected another explanation. And Cara knew exactly what sort of explanation she wanted – one that detailed the intimacies they’d shared, the true depth of their closeness. Dahlia wanted an explanation more fitting of the true bond they shared with each other, and Cara supposed she could understand that; it had been no meagre friendship._

_But they would both be waiting a long time for that explanation; Cara was no longer one of Dahlia’s sisters, and what connection they’d once had was as nothing when placed beside her loyalty to Richard and the affection she had come to feel for his friends._

_What had once existed between herself and Dahlia was past, she told herself. It was a part of the life she had left behind, and it was very important that it remain that way. True, it was the one part she missed more than any other (even the thrill of a fresh breaking could not compete with the thrills Dahlia had lavished upon her)... but that didn’t change what had happened, and it did not change who she had become. She was a different person now to the one Dahlia remembered, and she would neither belittle herself by reverting to the woman Dahlia had known, or make light of Dahlia’s own station by saying that she was no longer worthy._

_And yet, for all her certainty that this could never be, there was nothing in the world that could keep the longing from pulsing through her at the sight of those strong and carefully-hooded eyes. Dahlia. After so long, Dahlia. In spite of all the differences now gaping like a chasm between them, Dahlia. Her Dahlia._

_“Why were you following us?” Richard demanded, ever the Seeker, effectively cutting off Cara’s conflicted thoughts._

_Silently, Cara breathed a prayer to the Creator that Dahlia would have the good sense to keep her answers polite._

_The look her former sister gave the Seeker as he finished his query suggested that it was perhaps too much to hope for, and Cara was forced to bite back a groan; evidently there would be much conflict to come, even if it wasn’t immediate. With deliberate (to say nothing of obvious) relish, Dahlia made the point of turning her gaze back towards Cara as soon as her distaste for Richard had been made apparent, and Cara breathed a shaky sigh of relief; as hurtful as the other Mord-Sith’s look had been, it was far less so than her words would have._

_She was fairly sure that none of her companions noticed the way that Dahlia’s eyes (so much more dazzling than Cara remembered) softened as they fell once more upon her former sister, taking in the adjusted attire and the loose flow of her hair, and Cara had to fight to keep her own eyes from doing the same... to say little of the effort that suddenly came with keeping her attention on the matter at hand, and not on those depthless eyes._

_“The true Lord Rahl is in danger,” Dahlia explained, and Cara felt her pulse quicken. “I need your help to save him.”_

_“Darken Rahl may have used magic to come back to the world of the living,” Cara snapped, allowing herself to indulge in the taste of bitterness on her tongue, “but_ Richard _is the true Lord Rahl.”_

_Though Dahlia didn’t react to the claim, Cara knew she must have been reeling from it. No Mord-Sith, whoever they were and wherever their loyalties lay, could possibly hear libellous claims made about Darken Rahl without the urge to shed blood rising up within them like a pack of hungry hounds. At least, she amended, no Mord-Sith but she herself. It was, really, a true credit to Dahlia’s respectability that she still held her mask of indifference firmly in place even as she rushed with too much quickness to contradict Cara’s point._

_“I’m not talking about Darken Rahl,” she said, inscrutable, and then her gaze flicked back to Richard with anything but inscrutability. “Or the Seeker,” she snorted, disgusted, then stopped._

_Her eyes were back on Cara, then, still clouded, but softer. Almost sweet. Cara’s chest tightened, warning mingled with nostalgic pain._

_“I’m talking about your son.”_

_The ground did fall out from beneath her then, but Cara refused to let her knees buckle. She couldn’t. Not now, with every eye in a hundred-league radius suddenly locked on her. Not with Dahlia watching her, waiting for exactly that reaction, smiling with calculated self-satisfaction because she knew just how profound it would be. Not with the horrified shock that she could feel pouring from Richard and Kahlan in waves so powerful that they threatened to do more damage even than the spinning of the world or the way the sky was collapsing on top of her._

_Not this._

_Not now._

*

Cara’s shoulder was like rock beneath Kahlan’s fingers. That in itself should have been evidence enough of what was coming next, but, for reasons beyond even Kahlan’s own understanding, it wasn’t. It just made sense, she told herself, that Cara would be tense, seeing Dahlia for the first time after so long. So much of Cara had been changed since the last time they’d seen each other, and not just in her appearance; of course she would be uncomfortable, and of course she’d be fighting for breath despite her valiant efforts to seem careless and indifferent. Who wouldn't?

It just made sense, Kahlan’s rational mind insisted, again and again, and it seemed like a perfectly viable point... at least, until Cara opened her mouth to speak.

“Many Mord-Sith bear children,” she snapped, and the feint at righteous fury fell flat in a field of tremors.

Feeling helpless, Kahlan squeezed her shoulder, wincing as the muscle tightened even more than it already was, so rigid it actually hurt to keep her grip. She wondered, briefly, which was the more agonising task – seeing this played out before her eyes, knowing the truth as well as she did, knowing beyond all doubt how much pain it must be causing Cara to hear her child spoken about by the one person who had been so important in bringing him into the world... or, as the other Kahlan was undoubtedly doing right then, hearing the story told for the very first time.

It shouldn’t have mattered to either of them, really. It wasn’t about Kahlan, none of it was. Not her, and not the other version of herself. It was about Cara and Dahlia and the child that should never have existed. It was about _them_ , and Kahlan should have been able to accept that... but all she could think about was how helpless she felt, and how she wanted (so desperately that it hurt) to take Cara in her arms and drag her away from it all. Away from her memories, away from the child, and away from Dahlia. More than anything else in either of their worlds, away from Dahlia.

“It wasn’t important,” Cara said in a tiny voice.

“Of course it was,” Kahlan heard herself whisper.

She knew, even without having heard it, what the question had been. ‘ _Why didn’t you tell us_?’ She knew the question as surely as she knew the answer, because she knew perfectly well that she would have asked the very same thing herself if she’d been in the other Kahlan’s situation. Still, knowing it didn’t make the answer any easier to hear as it fell, doused in strain, from Cara’s lips. And it certainly didn’t do anything to ease the desperation surging up within Kahlan to drive Cara’s suffering out of her.

“Of course it was important,” she repeated, heartbroken. “How can you pretend it wasn’t? How can you think, even after all this time, that we wouldn’t have cared enough to understand?”

Cara’s gaze locked on a distant point on the far wall, and Kahlan knew she was fixing on Dahlia. Angry, apologetic, everything in between; Kahlan couldn’t even imagine how many different things she must have been feeling, how many different sentiments she was trying to convey (each contradicting the last, and each denied to both their graves). All she could do was hold onto the moment and will Dahlia to see how powerless Cara had been... how powerless she _was_.

“He was taken from me at birth,” Cara said, the words pouring out of her in a rush, as if speaking them quickly might be able to stem the flood of pain they brought.

“I know,” Kahlan murmured, and there was no power in either world that could have stopped her dropping her hand from Cara’s shoulder and wrapping both her arms around her. “I know,” she said again, letting her chin drop down to replace her hand on Cara’s too-rigid shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be!” Cara snarled, furious and hyper-defensive, and Kahlan could only close her eyes and wish that she didn’t understand why.

It wasn’t how Cara truly felt, she knew, but she could no more open herself up to regrets in front of Dahlia than she could have done so in those first few weeks with Kahlan herself. In a comparatively short time, Cara had changed so much (and so much for the better), but Dahlia was a phantom from her former life, and there were lines between the two that could not be crossed. Not now, and perhaps never.

Dahlia was too reminiscent of a life that Cara was struggling, even now, to leave completely behind, and Kahlan and Richard were to symbolic of a world to which she still didn’t feel like she belonged. She was trapped between the two, not truly part of either, and being slowly broken by them both.

“It was considered an _honour_ to be chosen by Lord Rahl,” she forced out, voice thick.

She wanted it to be true, Kahlan could tell. She _needed_ it to be true. Once, all those years ago, it had been true... and Cara would have given up everything she had – everything she was – to make it true again. Because, if it wasn’t, the alternative would destroy her.

Unable to speak, Kahlan just held her tighter.

*

_Cara’s companions were, of course, quick to side with Dahlia as soon as they realised there was a child involved._

_Richard, being Richard, instantly suggested that they part ways, with Zedd and Cara to help Dahlia rescue the boy from the Sisters of the Dark while he and Kahlan continued their quest for the Stone of Tears. For her part, Cara couldn’t disguise the disbelief that flickered like magical energy across her features; was he truly ordering her to do this? To abandon him, abandon their quest, to leave Seeker and Mother Confessor to their own hopeless devices, all for the sake of a child whose loss she had made peace with years earlier? She couldn’t believe it. And yet, it was so typically Richard that she had no choice._

_Though she would have liked to, Cara wasn’t truly so blind as to believe Richard’s sole incentive in sending her away was to be granted some time alone with Kahlan, but she could tell by the wistfulness behind his eyes that the thought had most certainly occurred to him. If she were honest, it was that which pained her far more deeply than the prospect of journeying with Dahlia._

_Cara didn’t mind being stuck for days with the wizard; she would not go so far as to say that she liked him, but he was pleasant enough company when he wanted to be, and she knew that he would respect her need for solitude with her thoughts during such a difficult mission as this. In truth, she supposed he was the most sensible choice she could have hoped for – Richard would be too curious, Kahlan too compassionate – and yet Cara’s heart ached at the thought of separation, in a way she hadn’t anticipated._

_She had been separate from Richard before, many times... but to be separated from Kahlan as well? Kahlan, who was so much more than just another of her travelling companions now, who could see into her soul with a single glance, and not because she was a Confessor? Kahlan, whose cloying and overprotective compassion was dangerously close to the only thing keeping her alive right then? Cara could not deny it, the thought of being without Kahlan’s support – now, more than ever before – filled her with such dread that she was powerless to contain it._

_Was she that afraid of her former sister that she needed a Confessor bodyguard? Or had she truly become so shamelessly dependent on Kahlan Amnell’s so-called friendship? Neither option was particularly pleasant._

_It was Kahlan who knew, where Richard and Zedd were oblivious, just how uncomfortable Cara was. It was Kahlan who would not judge her for the pained discomfort that she couldn’t keep from shaking through every inch of her. It was Kahlan who was at her side the instant Richard had finished issuing his command, fingers trailing spiderlike down her arm to squeeze her leather-covered hand. She didn’t say anything, because she didn’t need to, and the lingering contact coupled with the simmering empathy in her eyes to make Cara ache all over._

_She would miss Kahlan’s company, she realised, and the thought made her stare with renewed unease at Dahlia’s back. She would miss_ her _._

_They travelled mostly in silence, for which Cara was eternally grateful. There were so many thoughts ricocheting through her that she couldn’t keep them all straight, and she knew well enough that the distraction of conversation would only have made it all the more difficult to process. She wanted to ask Dahlia whether she’d seen the boy, how he looked, how it had felt to finally lay eyes on the infant whose birth had been kept from her like some kind of dirty secret. She wanted to speak of the other Mord-Sith, their temples, of the life she’d lost. She wanted everything she had once been, and yet, at the same time, wanted nothing more than to share what she was now with the only one of her former sisters who might have understood._

_When they stopped to make camp for the night, Cara was quick to insist on taking first watch. She needed to silence the maelstrom in her head, and knew better than to expect that she would get any sleep anyway. Zedd was acquiescent (more because he was tired, she guessed, than out of deference to what Cara had needed for herself), and Dahlia had wordlessly set her bedroll down on the far side of the crackling fire, across from the wizard’s._

_It was, she supposed, a mark of just how long it had been since she’d seen any of her former sisters, and Dahlia in particular, that Cara wasn’t already presuming to know how the night would end. Her thoughts had been conflicted, troubled, and (though she couldn’t deny the dull throb that lanced her nether region every time Dahlia’s body shifted a certain way, or she flicked her braid or flashed her eyes or did any of the countless other things that were uniquely her) physical intimacy had been the last thing on her mind. She had simply been too overwhelmed by too many other conflicts to let herself be distracted by such base sensations for very long._

_Really, it shouldn’t have surprised her at all that Dahlia had other ideas, but it did. Dahlia was still a Mord-Sith, and Cara knew the hierarchies of her sisters well enough to know that she could not have endured more than a handful of days without satisfaction. If she had been able to convince her sisters to go with her to track down the child Cara had borne for their former master, she certainly had power enough to ensure her needs would be satisfied whenever she wanted them to be. Dahlia had no need of Cara’s services, they both knew that. Still, she conceded, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that she desired them even so._

_They spoke, briefly, but it was little more than foreplay. Cara knew it, knew from countless experiences that the thinly-veiled conversation was purposeless... and so, uneasy and uncomfortable, she kept her eyes fixed on the horizon, the night sky, the forest floor, the line of trees surrounding them on all sides. On everything that wasn’t Dahlia._

_“I’m glad you decided to come with me.”_

_“I came because Richard ordered me to,” Cara explained quickly, and the words sounded wan and thin even to her own ears._

_She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, could barely even speak. Not with the way she could feel Dahlia’s eyes burning holes through her. Not with the way she knew Dahlia’s gaze was locked on her shorn hair as though she had never seen one of her sisters shamed before. Not with the heat between them hotter than the campfire._

_“Are you sorry you did?” Dahlia asked softly, so much innocence spilling from lips that Cara knew were anything but._

_Cara ached to close her eyes, to banish the question and the mutinous thoughts that came with it. Her head was filling with noise again, sick and dizzy, and she would have done anything to silence the hum of it that buzzed through her like so many bees. She wanted to feel Kahlan’s hand in hers again, gentle and reassuring and guiding, to let the Confessor’s gentleness take her away from these things she should not be feeling. She wanted to centre herself, to feel better for no longer being counted amount Dahlia’s sisters._

_She wanted so many things... but she wanted_ this _so much more._

_This. Dahlia. Here and now. The promise of forgetting that came with those not-innocent lips, and the pleasure that her throbbing centre needed more even than her heart needed to beat or her veins needed the blood to flow through them. She could not fight the need, the desire, the primal urges roaring through her. She could not fight Dahlia’s influence, even after so long._

_“No,” she whispered._

_The word was barely audible even in the midnight silence, but it was all that she needed to say, and all that Dahlia needed to hear._

_Moments passed, too long and not long enough, and Cara was already on edge before they even touched. And then, inexorably, Dahlia’s fingers were gently cupping her chin and tilting her face upwards, and suddenly Cara remembered just how long it had been since her bare skin had been kissed by Mord-Sith leather that wasn’t her own... and she knew that it was over. Before the words even escaped Dahlia’s lips (“_ neither am I _”), before she raised her eyes at long last to meet her former sister’s, before Dahlia leaned in, before their lips touched... before the world itself disappeared in a haze of lips and contact and touch and breath and_ them _... she knew it was all over._

_She knew she was lost._

*

Kahlan knew it too.

It had been inevitable, and yet there was something different in this, something that caused every inch of Kahlan to light itself on fire (the brutal, dangerous kind of fire, the kind that left burns and scars) and render her powerless in the face of it.

Nothing had happened yet, though it only took the barest glance at the way Cara’s lips had begun to shift to know that it was about to, but even that barely-existent nothing was enough for Kahlan to realise, with a sense of certainty that stole her breath and her strength, that she simply couldn’t witness this.

After everything she’d seen, all that she’d witnessed, everything she’d come to know, she could not allow herself to watch this. She couldn’t.

She remembered vividly the horror that had flooded her, what felt like a thousand years ago, when she had forced herself to watch Cara and Dahlia’s clumsy first attempt at coupling, back when the spell’s effects were still fresh and new and unfamiliar, a far cry from the second nature they were now.

There had been countless intimacies since then, with Dahlia and numerous others, and Kahlan had watched them all (some, she recalled with a blush, more closely than others, and her stomach gave an involuntary twitch as she remembered the way Cara had felt against her, moving and writhing and bucking into her as though _she_ were the source of her pleasures). Embarrassed, uneasy, entirely unexpected, but she had done as she’d said she would and been there through them all. Even after she’d realised the questionable purity of her own feelings, she had continued to do as she’d been asked, because she had made a promise.

But she could not watch this.

“Cara,” she managed to choke out, pulling roughly away as Cara’s mouth fell open in reaction to a kiss that wasn’t there. “Cara, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, but I can’t. Not this time. I can’t.”

Trembling violently, and not really knowing why, she pulled back, putting as much distance between them as the small room would allow. It wasn’t enough. A thousand rooms wouldn’t have been enough. Not when Cara was about to get down on her knees for a woman who was about to betray her.

It was more than that, though, more than the twisted combination of sex and treason. It was the way Cara was so quick to surrender to everything Dahlia was, how easily she became the person she’d once been. It was everything in Cara that Kahlan had truly believed she’d left behind long ago, the life and the soul she had finally cast aside. It was the Mord-Sith. It was a return to all the things she had turned her back on, and relishing them with as much abandon as she’d ever done when she was among them. It was worship and supplication and power and pain.

It was a thousand things Kahlan would never truly understand, however well she believed herself to know Cara, but which she had foolishly allowed herself to believe that Cara might have finally let herself cast away completely.

Kahlan didn’t want to see that Cara again. She couldn’t. Not after everything they’d been through together, after all the things that had made Cara so much more than the chaos she’d come from, in both worlds. She had changed so much, grown so much, become so much. It would break Kahlan’s heart beyond even Zedd’s powers to heal it if she had to watch Cara topple like a stone from the cliff of what she’d evolved into, back into the angry sea of what she had been.

“Cara,” she said again, suddenly hating the taste of the name on her tongue. “I’m going outside.”

She didn’t want to leave. She knew the danger in it, knew that intimacy was just as likely to result in injury (if not more so, knowing as she did Cara’s unique taste for power play), and she knew that leaving Cara alone just so that she herself wouldn’t have to feel uncomfortable was reckless at best and idiotic at worst... but it was more than she could do to stay. It was more than she could do to watch Cara surrender herself to something – to _someone_ – so unworthy of her, to an existence that was so much less than all that she was.

“I’ll be right outside the door,” she offered lamely, as if it was worth anything at all. “Just... call if you need anything...”

Cara’s only response was a sudden elevation in her breathing, a sharp hitch in her chest that Kahlan recognised all too well. And so, she did the only thing she could.

Like a coward, she fled the room.

*

_The first kiss was surrender. The second was possession._

_By the time Dahlia’s hands were fisted in her hair, mere moments later, Cara had practically forgotten her own name. She was lost, beyond lost, drowning in the feel of cool leather against her skin, of gloved hands that weren’t her own, of the way Dahlia’s braid felt between her fingers. She forgot everything except what it was, in that one long heartbeat, to be a true Mord-Sith._

_Seconds, minutes, hours later, they broke apart, panting in tandem. Dark blotches of almost-colour were dancing behind Cara’s eyes, and they had nothing to do with the way her lungs were loudly reminding her that she needed air. Dahlia, already gasping with desire, was gazing at her as though she were the most precious thing in all the world, and Cara felt a dangerous flutter deep within her chest._

_“I missed you,” Dahlia breathed, and the pure awestruck reverence in the words belied the childlike simplicity of them._

_It was so like Dahlia, shrouding honesty in childishness. So deliciously like her._

_“Show me,” Cara ground out, teeth bared. “Show me how much.”_

_She wanted it like it had been. Hard and fast, Cara always standing, always on top. Dahlia on her knees, whispering Cara’s name over and over again, until all Cara could feel was the heat of it washing over her most private area, the sound mingling with the fluid warmth of Dahlia’s too-practiced tongue against her and within her and..._ spirits _, the mere thought was enough to send her into a tremor that was far too close to pleasure for so early in the night._

_It had been too long, evidently, if she was so achingly ready so soon. She would ensure Dahlia rectified that error, repeatedly._

_Bracing herself against the rock that she was sure had once had some real practical function, she watched with an anticipatory shiver as Dahlia slid with catlike grace down her body, hands lingering with perfect precision everywhere they touched, even as her eyes remained irremovably locked on Cara’s. It seemed almost as if she were afraid (truly afraid) that tearing her gaze away for even a moment would cause Cara to disappear without a trace, and the thought that Dahlia still cared enough to fear such a thing caused a pulse of heat to radiate out from the centre of Cara’s chest... a pulse that, she realised too late, had nothing to do with the giving or receiving of carnal pleasure._

_Though she wanted to drink in every breath of Dahlia’s worship, to commit every last moment of it to memory, Cara felt her eyes drifting shut as Dahlia’s dextrous fingers reached the buckle of her belt. She moaned, low and deep and appreciative, the sound rumbling in her sparking chest, and then inhaled sharply at the metallic click that coincided so perfectly with the familiar sensation of the belt being loosened, unfastened, discarded._

_“Dahlia,” she managed, tightening her fist in Dahlia’s braid just as she had done a hundred thousand times before. “Dahlia.”_

_“Cara,” Dahlia breathed in return, and her breath was hot and wanton and needy even against the leather still covering Cara’s torso. “I am yours. Now, always. Yours.”_

_A low growl formed in Cara’s throat, and she wanted to yank at the braid in her hand, possession mingling with self-conscious bitterness at no longer having one of her own. She wanted to tug, to force Dahlia’s face closer, ever closer, to her sweat-slickened skin (even before the barrier of her leathers was truly out of the way, because she could not wait), to command her to do what she’d done so effortlessly so many times before. To order her to submit._

_All those things and a thousand more, her very soul was screaming at her to do... but she didn’t. She couldn’t. Her fist, tight as it was over Dahlia’s perfect braid (never a hair out of place, as was the way of all Mord-Sith), didn’t lash or pull or use force. Her voice, though it was already throaty and raw with anticipatory whimpers and moans, would not allow her to issue commands. It was who she was, and yet somehow she was betraying herself._

_“Dahlia...” she tried again, but there was too much desperation and not enough demand in the word._

_She could feel the bemusement in the other woman, could feel the way she shook to keep from laughing, and felt a dissatisfied hiss ripple through her. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she do what she had done so many times before? Why couldn’t she be the woman Dahlia knew, the woman who would have her on her knees, who would have her way by force if not by design. Where was the Cara who doused a night of passion with all the fires of war?_

_“Dahlia... I...”_

_Still, the words wouldn’t come. Spirits, what was she? She wanted this. Her body certainly wanted it, that was more than apparent by the way her leathers were cinching and clinging in places that had been perfectly comfortable in the moments before Dahlia had started toying with them, and her wanton soul needed it more desperately than it had ever needed anything before in all its life. And yet, she could not summon the words. Could not summon the will to command._

_“Cara,” Dahlia purred, eyes hooded in supplication despite her partner’s wavering. “What it is?”_

_Her worship was delicious. Cara moaned again, drinking it down, willing herself to take it as the gift it was, to shape it into something that would give her back some shred of her stolen authority. Struggled to shape Dahlia’s willingness to serve into the need to possess. Forced herself to speak._

_“..._ please _...”_

_Dahlia’s eyes went wide. Cara choked on her own humiliation._

_“You have gone soft,” she heard murmured against her belly; there was no judgment in the observation, and that made her feel even worse. “You are_ asking _me to take you? Begging like a dog on your back? Pleading with me? What has happened to you, Cara?”_

_Cara had no answer._

_Within moments, it didn’t matter. The flush of shame that seared every exposed inch of her (coupled with the way Dahlia redoubled her ministrations at her sticky-soaked leathers) only served to fan the flames of Cara’s desire. Her voice may have betrayed her, but her body was as eager as ever, and the hotter it burned, the more ready it was to take what it wanted if it wasn’t offered quickly enough. She balled her fist ever more tightly, and Dahlia gave a satisfied hum as her hair was yanked by its roots._

_“Kiss me,” Cara growled, and it was still too close to begging. “I need your mouth on me.”_

_“I intend to,” Dahlia replied, all teeth and tongue over ever-loosening leathers. “Believe me, Cara, I fully intend—”_

_“No.”_

_Dahlia’s fingers labouring with practiced precision over the laces at her hips caused her to trail off for a moment. But this was important, and Cara forced herself to think through the haze and make herself known._

_“No, Dahlia,” she repeated, voice hoarse. “Not there. Not like that.”_

_She tugged again at the other woman’s braid, and Dahlia was too complicit in allowing herself to be drawn back up Cara’s body. Cara’s hands, apparently in league with her traitorously pleading voice, were too gentle in seeing their will done, too close to asking and not close enough to taking. She was shaking, shuddering, and it was nothing to do with fire and everything to do with feeling._

_And then Dahlia’s face was level with her own once more, and Cara willed herself to drown the unwanted sentiment in sensation._

_“Like this...” she insisted brokenly, breathing the words against Dahlia’s lips in the heartbeat before she devoured them._

_“What’s gotten into you?” Dahlia asked, drawing away, eyes wide with surprise, and curious._

_“Nothing,” Cara replied, feeling a little more like herself. “Yet.”_

_Dahlia smiled smugly at that. “You’ve missed me too.”_

_Perhaps she had. Cara didn’t know. All she knew was that she wanted Dahlia’s lips on hers, that she wanted a true kiss, a heartfelt press of both their mouths in sync, even as the rest of her body was just as hungry for the attentions of Dahlia’s. She wanted all of her, all over her, and she didn’t want to wait for any part of herself to be done with any part of Dahlia. Not when they would be taken away in a moment, not when they both knew this would all have to end when the sun came up._

_“Take me,” she whispered, still too much like a plea._

_Dahlia needed no further invitation, though. The lash of cool midnight air struck Cara’s skin as she was stripped, her fingers tangling and twisting in the laces of Dahlia’s leathers the instant they were freed from their gloves. She was dimly aware of the fact that Zedd was sleeping, practically no distance away, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. The need outweighed the wizard’s modesty, and she had no doubt that, even if he did wake, he’d be far more inclined to appreciate the two women on display than he would be to chastise them._

_In no time at all, they were both naked, exposed, pure, and it was as though Cara was seeing Dahlia for the first time all over again. A dry choking sound caught in her throat, and she was grateful for the fact that Dahlia’s attentions were so occupied just then, because it was dangerously close to a sob. And dangerously close to being repeated, too, she realised with hazy fear, and she pulled Dahlia up again to capture her mouth and assault her tongue and use her to silence those rising flickers of emotion._

_This was no place for feeling._

_Of their own accord, Cara felt her hips rising, bucking against whatever blissfully solid part of Dahlia was pressed so delightfully against her. Dahlia shifted, groaning into her mouth at the feel of her there, teeth biting down on Cara’s tongue until they both tasted blood._

_“Dahlia,” Cara managed again, and it finally sounded like the command she would have expected of herself._

_Her hips jerked again, harder, but she refused to release Dahlia’s mouth for the task. Dahlia would have to improvise, she decided, because she needed those lips on hers right then, damming the wall of emotion that threatened to drown them both if only it found the least opportunity._

_“Take me,” she repeated, nipping at Dahlia’s lower lip in retaliation for the blood on her tongue, and allowed her fingers to wander until they closed over Dahlia’s wrist with something that was dangerously close to affection._

_It was a far cry from the forceful display of power they had both been hoping for, but it was all she could muster, blind as she was, and Dahlia (always so attuned to Cara’s needs) made the most of it. She allowed her hand to be guided –_ almost _driven – downwards until it reached its destination, granting Cara the delusion of authority that she still could not wield, just as she had always made allowances for Cara’s appetites; likewise, she allowed Cara the pretense of believing that it was only by her direction that those blissfully bared fingers were fitting moments later to the parts her Cara that were aching for them, sliding, lingering in all the right places, touching and caressing with such deliciously perfect pressure that it could only have come from Dahlia._

_Cara had always been easily satisfied, and especially by Dahlia, but this time was remarkable even by her standards. Dahlia’s fingertips needed only to brush her most sensitive and arousal-slick area, the barest flickering of a caress, and she was coming apart. Shivering, arching, gasping with release, and Dahlia had barely touched her. Slack-jawed, keening out her pleasure into Dahlia’s unyielding mouth. It was as if she hadn’t been touched in a dozen lifetimes... and it was glorious._

_Dahlia laughed, sucking on Cara’s bloodied tongue as she recovered._

_“You really have missed me,” she purred, pleased with herself._

_Cara gritted her teeth against the pulsing wave of feeling that rose unbidden in the back of her throat. Jerked Dahlia’s wrist hard in her hand. Cried out, pleasure-kissed pain, as strong fingers drove into the depths of her. Came again, seconds later._

_Dahlia smiled, self-satisfied, and feasted on the inside of Cara’s mouth. Cara fisted her wrist hard enough to bruise, and forced those familiar fingers deeper inside her. Lost herself to the plunging rhythm and the taste of blood._

_She didn’t want to hear what Dahlia had to say about this. She couldn’t hear her voice, couldn’t listen as she spoke of being missed, of missing Cara, of what they had once meant to each other. She needed more, needed pain and pleasure and blood and sweat. Needed the ground soaked with the fruits of their labour, the air saturated with the sounds of their coupling. She needed to forget she had ever felt human._

_“Keep going,” she panted, worse than desperate._

_Dahlia did. Again and again, until they both forgot their own names. Until the sun came up and they remembered._

*

“Kahlan?”

Lost in contemplation as she had been, Kahlan hadn’t realised that she wasn’t alone until the sound of her name carved like a blade through the tangled mass of her thoughts.

“Richard.”

He looked almost as weary as she felt, and Kahlan wondered idly if he’d gotten any sleep at all in the days since this had started. Knowing him as well as she did, and knowing how prone he was to worrying about his friends, she doubted it, and part of her wanted to adopt her most official-sounding Confessor’s voice and tell him in no uncertain terms to go to bed... but, of course, they both knew it would do no good. Richard was as immune to her authority as she was to his. It had always been that way, and she was sure it always would. He would sleep, just as she would, when this was all over.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked, sounding tired but amicable. “I thought you said you didn’t want to leave her.”

Not wanting him to know the truth, but too exhausted to hide it, she huffed an unhappy sigh. “She’s... busy.”

It didn’t surprise her in the least when Richard had to fight to keep his ears from pricking up; had she not been so drained and so maudlin, she would have laughed.

“Really?” he asked, as casually as he could manage (which wasn’t very).

“Really,” she told him, massaging her temples. “I couldn’t face it again.”

To his credit, Richard needed only to glance at her face and he dropped the boyish intrigue instantly. “It’s not easy,” he said, suddenly sober. “Not for any of us.”

“No,” Kahlan agreed. “It’s not, and I’m sorry.”

“Kahlan,” Richard said, and there was such urgency crackling through every part of him that she was almost afraid of what he was thinking. “You have nothing to apologise for. Nothing at all.”

She opened her mouth to contradict that point, to list all the reasons he, specifically, had to warrant an apology, but he silenced her with a wave of his hand.

“You can’t control what you feel, Kahlan,” he told her, and the sorrow in his voice lanced her heart. “None of us can. I can’t stop loving you, Zedd can’t stop regretting what he did, and Cara can’t stop...” He tilted his head back towards the room, a tangible blush creeping up his neck despite his obvious attempts to hide it. “...being Cara.”

“But it doesn’t make it easier,” she repeated softly.

“No,” he echoed, and his eyes were pensive but his voice was steady with faith. “But she’s worth the difficulty.”

“You’ve always said she was,” she observed, and the truth of it was excruciating.

Acknowledging the point with a sad half-shrug, but making no effort to belabour it, Richard leaned against the wall. His eyes slid closed for a moment or two, and Kahlan watched the rhythmic rise and fall of his breathing. He looked so small, almost like he’d been through everything she had, and more besides. Though he’d told her not to apologise, Kahlan couldn’t suppress the pulse of guilt that coursed through her again at the sight of him so reduced; had he been thinking about her, about this, about _them_ , ever since they’d last parted ways? Had he slept at all? And why hadn’t Zedd insisted upon it?

“Kahlan,” he said, at long last, opening his eyes again and cutting off the unspoken questions before she had the chance to find her voice and ask. His eyes, when they met hers, were dark with fatigue and etched with worry. “She’s not the only one who’s going to need support when this is finished.”

That thought had occurred to her, but it still hurt to hear it aloud. She hadn’t expected any of this. Cara had told her, with no margin for error, that she was her reason for doing this, and Richard himself had pointed out that the experience was as much Kahlan’s as it was Cara’s... but she was supposed to be stronger. She was supposed to be distanced from Cara and the life that neither of them had ever lived, and she was supposed to be able to witness it, absorb it, and use it to help Cara – her _friend_. That was all. No more, and no less.

She wasn’t supposed to be here, fighting tears borne of emotions she couldn’t even name, much less comprehend, and wanting nothing more than for Richard to wrap her up in his arms, hold her, and tell her everything would work out. This wasn’t supposed to have happened; Kahlan wasn’t supposed to be so affected by this, and she wasn’t supposed to be torn apart. She wasn’t supposed to be the one who needed support. She was supposed to be the Mother Confessor.

“I know,” she admitted, and hated it.

And then, as if reading her mind, as if he knew (like he always did) just how badly she needed his comfort just then, he _was_ pulling her into his arms, and she allowed herself to drown in the familiar warmth of his embrace, the solid strength of his chest against hers, the staccato rhythm of his breathing, the earthy essence that was so inimitably Richard. He was so simple, so pure and so perfect... so why couldn’t Cara be too?

“If you need anything,” he said, and she drank deep of his love. “I’m here. None of this is going to change that.”

She nodded, pulling back. “Stay with me.”

Richard quirked an eyebrow; he looked puzzled, anxious but not judgmental.

“Will she mind?” he asked, and the genuine concern in his eyes touched her deeply.

It was a good question, and one that Kahlan couldn’t immediately answer. As a general rule, Cara was entirely uncensored and had absolutely no modesty of which to speak; though they’d both denied it, Kahlan was not so foolish as to presume that the Mord-Sith hadn’t offered her unique ‘services’ to Richard on more than one occasion, and she rather suspected that the thought of Richard seeing her involved in lewd acts with Dahlia would have been more a source of amusement than embarrassment to the unflappable Cara. Certainly, his presence wouldn’t offend her sensibilities.

But it was the rest that gave her pause. The so-called weakness that she knew Cara would never want her Lord Rahl to know about.

She thought of what she’d seen through the spell, reminding herself of the differences between the woman she knew and the one she never would. A Cara who was willing to admit that she felt friendship for a Confessor, a Cara who was not ashamed to ask for compassion and accept tenderness if it was needed, however emphatically she would deny it later. A Cara who was softer in so many ways and harder in so many more, who had confessed to a night wisp that she _cared_. A Cara who was struggling to find a sense of identity in a world that had stripped her of the only one she knew, but who had enough insight to know that it was a struggle worth putting herself through. A Cara who, she hoped, would understand just how desperately Kahlan needed this – needed Richard – for herself.

“No,” she said, willing herself to believe it. “She won’t mind at all.”

Accepting her words as Cara’s consent, Richard nodded.

Though she would never admit it, it wasn’t entirely for the sake of Richard’s modesty that Kahlan waited a few extra minutes before pushing the door open and stepping back inside. She needed the time for herself, to make sure that Cara and Dahlia were done, to brace herself for the guilt she knew she would feel despite herself. Guilt at having left Cara alone in the first place, guilt at allowing Richard to see the Mord-Sith as exposed as she was, guilt at her own inability to face this alone any more.

Moreover, she needed the time to prepare herself for what she knew was to come, the betrayal that was looming on the horizon, the heartbreak she was sure would wash through Cara as Dahlia turned on her and handed her over to Darken Rahl, to be tortured with magic beyond even Zedd’s extensive understanding. She needed to prepare herself for that... because, even with the Seeker by her side, she wasn’t entirely convinced she would survive it.

Richard, to his credit, didn’t push her, and she drew more strength than she’d care to admit from the feel of his hand in hers as she steadied her breathing and put one hand to the cool surface of the door.

When she re-entered the room with Richard in tow, Cara was on her knees. Her eyes were wide, jaw hanging open, and Kahlan found herself briefly wondering if perhaps she still wasn’t finished providing whatever services she had offered to Dahlia.

It was a doubt that lasted less than a heartbeat, though, as the barest of whimpers escaped Cara’s lips, and the sound filled Kahlan (and, she knew, Richard too) with sick dread. It wasn’t a sound of pleasure, and it certainly wasn’t a sound of servitude, not even by Mord-Sith standards. It was a sound that was completely alien in Cara, and yet Kahlan recognised it immediately.

It was fear.

“Cara,” Kahlan heard herself breathe, feeling Richard’s fingers tighten around her own in a gesture of simultaneous empathy and support. “Cara, I’m here.”

The words had never worked before, and she didn’t expect that they would now either. She knew that it would hurt, just as it always did when Cara ignored her prayerful reassurances. She’d anticipated the dagger to her soul, and so she clung to Richard’s hand as though it was the only thing keeping her from falling to pieces.

She knew, even before Cara raised her head to look at them both (no, she reminded herself, _through_ ; she had to remember that, now more than ever), that whatever words escaped her would be wounding. And, as the guilt arced through her like lightning, leaving her torn asunder – her loyalty to Cara on one side, and her need for Richard’s warmth and strength on the other – Cara’s spell-blind eyes locked inescapably on the Seeker.

“...why are you doing this?”


	30. Chapter 30

_The pain was familiar. The panic was not._

_Cara was intimately acquainted with pain, on every conceivable level. Even as she struggled just to regain consciousness, some barely-functional corner of her mind was already working at collating and analysing the hundred different types of suffering that tore and ripped through her body. The heavy throbbing as she fought to open her eyes (bruises, concussion), the screaming tension in her arms (muscle exhaustion, already), the rippling pulse of sickly sweet blood across her abdomen and her back (agiels)... she didn’t miss a single flicker of discomfort, and they each made sense._

_Pain gave her comfort._

_But the panic? The irrepressible terror that arced through her as she realised where she was and who was standing in front of her, as the memories of what had happened came flooding back, making her head ache even more than it already was? That did not make any sense, and it was not comforting. It was terrifying, truly terrifying, and it effortlessly dislodged what tentative shadow of control the pain had helped her to summon, rendering her utterly unable to keep from allowing the fear to touch her features, her eyes, her voice... all of her._

_“Where’s Zedd?” she heard herself blurt out, ignoring the protestations of her aching muscles and the way her lungs threatened to collapse with every raw breath she took._

_She expected Darken Rahl to smile at that, to laugh or to strike her, or to do any of the countless things he would have done to her years ago for daring to speak out of turn (much less expressing genuine concern about anyone who wasn’t him), but he didn’t do any of those things. He did nothing at all, in fact, merely stood there studying her as though she were a particularly uninteresting slab of rock in a wall filled with equally uninteresting slabs of rock. He looked bored. As though he was tired of her already, and Cara hated that she let it hurt._

_“Your concern for the wizard is touching,” he said at last, and Cara’s chest exploded._

_The carelessness in his voice was more than reason enough for her to fear the worst, and it took every ounce of dwindling strength she had to keep from allowing herself to shed the tears that threatened to mist over her eyes. This wasn’t happening. Darken Rahl was toying with her, just as he’d always done when she had served him. He wanted her to believe the worst because he knew that would make it easier to break her._

_It was a lifetime before he spoke again, and, when he did, the disdain in his voice caused a thrum of shame to wrap itself around Cara’s soul. Even after so long, it seemed, Darken Rahl’s disappointment could cut as deep as a blade._

_“I shall put your tender heart at ease,” he said, as close to a sneer as it was possible to be without actually curling a lip. “He’s alive.”_

_Despite her best efforts, despite the knowledge of what punishment it would bring, Cara couldn’t even try to conceal the relief that cascaded through her, so profound and so all-consuming that she almost missed his carefully-enunciated addendum._

_“...for now.”_

_Unable to think through the mixed messages of pain, humiliation, relief, terror, and betrayal, Cara struggled with every ounce of fading strength to control herself. Her reaction, her breathing, the beating of her heart. Every part of her._

_“What do you want with us?”_

_Rahl did smile then, and Cara wondered whether it was the question itself that had so amused him, or the fact that she’d barely been able to get it past her cracked lips. She was going to lose this, she knew; she had been conscious less than a minute, and Rahl was already exposing her weaknesses, just like he always had._

_“Isn’t it obvious?” he asked; it was a barb, a lash at her foolishness, and the smile fell like a ghost from his face as he appraised her like a slab of meat. “I want you back on my side.”_

*

Kahlan was, by this point, so attuned to every facet of Cara’s body language that the thought never occurred to her that Richard might not be as familiar as she was. As she felt her pulse quicken with concern, felt her palms slicken with sweat as she recognised the telltale signs of pain and trauma flinching and shivering their way through Cara’s body, and knew beyond doubt that there was still worse yet to come, she was almost completely unaware of the confusion that was touching Richard’s features until he spoke it aloud.

“Are you all right?” he asked, squeezing her hand briefly before pulling his own loose to rest gently on her shoulder, even as he was unable to hide the bafflement from his voice.

Blinking, Kahlan turned back to him, not even bothering to keep the sorrow-strained worry out of her eyes; what was the point in having him by her side if she had to hide the very reason she needed him? Besides, she knew that, if there was anyone in the world who would understand how she felt and love her regardless, it was Richard.

“She’s in pain,” she told him, and hoped that was explanation enough.

As if in affirmation of the point, Cara twitched, her back going into spasm (visible even under the leather). She didn’t say anything immediately, but the small flicker of response was enough to let Richard see what Kahlan had already seen, and his frown deepened.

“Are you going to be able to watch this?” he asked, and Kahlan tore her eyes away from Cara for just long enough to see the way his jaw clenched as he looked helplessly from one woman to the other and back again. “If she’s going to be suffering...”

“I’ve seen her suffer before,” Kahlan reminded him pointedly, though she couldn’t control the tremulous quiver that worked its way unbidden into her voice.

Richard smiled, though there was no mirth in it. “The suffering is easier to watch than the intimacy?” he asked, genuinely curious.

“Suffering is a part of who she is,” Kahlan explained. “She’s a Mord-Sith, Richard. To know her is to know her pain.”

For a moment, it looked as though he was going to try and argue the point; she wasn’t entirely sure what he was thinking of saying, but she could tell simply by the look on his face that, whatever it was, she didn’t want to hear it. Knowing as she did with such certainty that anything Richard was about to say would have incited an immediate argument, she was grateful for the distraction when Cara gave a strained laugh from the floor.

“My son was never kidnapped,” she managed, realisation and breathless discomfort blending seamlessly in her too-shaky voice. “Was he?”

Kahlan’s blood ran cold.

Beside her, Richard’s jaw fell open. “What?” he asked, sounding almost more tortured than Cara. “Her _what_?”

Though she knew he wanted an answer, Kahlan couldn’t tear her gaze away from Cara’s face. She did her best to hide her reaction (as she always hid everything), but it was beyond even her considerable capacity, and Kahlan knew exactly what she was being told without ever having to hear the words. There was only one kind of revelation that could colour so much pain with so much grief, even on the face of a Mord-Sith.

The boy was dead, Kahlan knew; she could see it as clear as starlight on Cara’s face, and the realisation caused everything else in the room – in the world – to fade out into nothing. Suddenly, she could think of nothing more important than forcing her way into the spell, (into the nonexistent other world, however impossible the task), and driving Rahl’s own agiel down his throat for what he had done.

“Kahlan!” Richard said, the sharpness of his voice bringing her back, however reluctantly, to reality.

Struggling to keep herself from breaking down, she turned to face him. She could see the blind befuddlement on his face, and knew that he didn’t have any idea what Cara was going through; she supposed she couldn’t blame him for that, not knowing Cara half so well as she did by now, but she couldn’t quite keep herself from hating him as he continued to focus on the bombshell he had just heard instead of the trauma that was painting itself like a sunset across Cara’s face.

“Her son?” he demanded.

“It’s a long story,” Kahlan managed, knowing before she even finished the sentence that it wasn’t enough. “She was... there was... she had...”

“She was with child,” Richard stated flatly. “That’s why she was... the last time I was here. When she... when I...” He closed his eyes, and Kahlan could see the wheels in his mind repeating the experience. “That’s why it happened,” he finished at last. “She was with child.”

There was no point in denying it now, and Kahlan conceded the point with a submissive nod and a heavy sigh. “She was.”

“Rahl’s.” It wasn’t a question. “His son. She had his _son_.”

Kahlan exhaled tightly, watching Cara with an aching heart as her eyes slammed tightly shut. She could feel the pain radiating off her in waves, and it tore at her to know that there was nothing she could do to save her from it. Whatever she did, Cara would still be alone. Completely and utterly alone. It was soul-destroying.

“It’s not our Cara,” she breathed, and she didn’t know whether she was reminding Richard or herself. “Our Cara was... none of this happened to her. None of it.”

“One Mord-Sith doesn’t make that much difference,” Richard said; he didn’t sound judgmental, exactly, though he certainly seemed disbelieving. “It must have. If that Cara was with child, then our Cara _must_ have—”

“Richard,” Kahlan interrupted, hating herself for how glad she was of the distraction from Cara’s pain. “Even if our Cara was with child... _if_ she was... the child would have died in the womb before she ever knew. Denna...” She trailed off for a moment, not wanting to remember. “There was an incident. An altercation. Denna didn’t know, and neither did Cara. But Dahlia did, and she stopped it before they could...” Across the room, Cara let out a clipped moan of pain, and Kahlan’s stomach gave a violent lurch. “Before it could escalate.”

Richard’s features tightened with the enormity of what he was hearing. He still didn’t quite understand, Kahlan could tell, but he was closer than he had been. It wasn’t much of a victory, but she took it.

“This woman was important, Richard,” she told him. “What she did to Cara, I can’t forgive... but she was so important, to so many lives.”

“Including yours,” Richard said, too softly.

Unable to deny it, she nodded. “Including mine.”

*

_When she next saw Dahlia, Cara was barely conscious._

_She had forgotten how skilled Darken Rahl was in the subtle art of breaking people, and he had been especially relentless with her. It was as if he had something to prove, as if none of this was truly about Cara at all. When he drove the agiel into her side, holding it in place until her flesh was smouldering, she could practically feel Richard’s name hovering just below the seared surface of the wounds. When he lashed out in blindly-fuelled rage, slamming the weapon’s handle into her face with such force that she almost blacked out (again and again until the room was pitching and churning beneath her), she could sense that she wasn’t the one he was truly angry with._

_Cara was a tool. It was all she’d ever been._

_It was all Dahlia was, too, though she was too loyal to see it. Dahlia had always been too loyal to see anything._

_Cara supposed she couldn’t really criticise the other woman for that. Not when she herself was so dizzy, so blinded by pain that she couldn’t see anything either. It was more than she could do to keep her eyes open, and she felt her head snapping back as Rahl delivered another bone-shattering blow, only to hear (always hear, never see) Dahlia’s voice from somewhere behind her. She could only cling to the chains holding her up, helpless and exposed, and wish that her ears would stop ringing for just long enough to make out the details of what was passing between the two of them over her brutalised body._

_And then Dahlia was gliding across the room, and Cara felt the brush of her leather (so familiar, so alien, so Dahlia) as she stepped lithely around her. She couldn’t see anything, but she knew that Dahlia’s eyes were flicking to her, to the hanging body that had once been Cara, and she sensed the touch of something like emotion deep within those beautiful eyes. It was indecipherable, and Cara wasn’t entirely sure whether it was truly there or whether she was just imagining it, but the thought that it might be gave her strength to brace for the next assault._

_“My Lord,” Dahlia purred, raising a hand in time with Rahl as he drew back the agiel, and Cara wished she didn’t feel those words right through to her core._

_Even now, with so much at stake, even with the so-called Lord Rahl himself standing between them, Dahlia was trying to protect her; had she more than a single breath’s worth of strength within her, Cara would have been angry. She wanted to be, but it was more than she could muster. Another blow, and she would lose consciousness, another lash, another anything, and she was certain she would die._

_“You’ve been exhausting yourself for hours,” Dahlia went on silkily, and it was just the right amount of supplication merging seamlessly with exactly the wrong amount of enthusiasm. “Let me continue her training, so you can get some rest.”_

_Cara wanted to protest, but she couldn’t. She was too exhausted, too close to the brink of unconsciousness, and the meagre complaint died in her throat; she felt her head fall forward, limp and so close to lifeless, as the effort required to hold it upright became too much. On the edge of her awareness, she could make out Rahl’s acceptance of the offer, a note of instruction in his voice, but the words themselves were lost in the struggle to keep from passing out. She couldn’t. Not now. Not in front of Rahl, and definitely not in front of Dahlia._

_The next thing she was aware of (minutes, hours, weeks, years later) was gentleness. Real, genuine, unmistakeable._

_Dahlia’s hands, recognisable even in the confines of their leather gloves and through the haze of almost-unconsciousness, were at her face. Everywhere and nowhere all at once, soothing her fevered wounds with a cloth that was too soft for a place as hard as this, and then trailing through her hair with a fondness that touched her in places she was supposed to have walled off. It was too much, and Cara fought through the semiconscious blur of pain and nausea to try and suppress the broken little whimpers that insisted on tearing from her._

_“I wish there were another way,” Dahlia whispered, and the touch of her lips against Cara’s cheek was her undoing._

_With more effort than she had ever put into anything in all her life, Cara opened her eyes. She tried to will them to focus, but that was beyond her power, and she settled instead for allowing the blurry shape she knew as Dahlia to swim ghostlike before her field of vision._

_“Why did you lie to me?” she managed, and her voice was so helpless, so tiny, that even she didn’t recognise it as hers._

_This was a different kind of breaking to the suffrage she endured at Rahl’s hand. His torture was on the surface, all anger and quickness and violence. When he struck her, she felt the pain down to her bones. It was different now, here, with Dahlia. It was torture just the same, but the pain wasn’t physical and it wasn’t familiar. She could not divide her mind from it, and she could not brace herself for when it struck. It was pure and it was raw and it was unbearable. It was everything Richard and Kahlan and Zedd had said was not weakness._

_It certainly felt like weakness now._

_Rahl had been so perfect, so clever, choosing Dahlia. Dahlia, who had loved the unborn child as though he were her own, who had been deprived the chance to see him born. Dahlia, who had been so vocal in expressing her love (though never calling it by that name) for the infant as it had grown and swelled within Cara’s belly. Dahlia, who had hunted her down as she travelled with Richard, weaving exactly the perfect story to turn Cara’s softening heart._

_She, who had been denied the chance to see the boy at birth, had taken it upon herself to find him. She, the one person in the world who had more claim to the boy than anyone, had, after so many lost years, still cared enough for the boy to seek him out, to find him and take him and protect him and serve him as the heir to D’Hara that she, so much more than anyone else, had always claimed he was._

_From anyone else’s lips, Cara would have doubted the story; she wouldn’t have needed even a moment to see it as false, to sense the trap in it, to know better than to fall for it. But this was Dahlia. This was the one woman who had cared for the child more deeply even than Cara herself had, who Cara had truly believed could not lie about him. It had been beyond clever, choosing her, because she was the one person in all the world that Cara would never have doubted._

_The lie, she decided as she inhaled the hitching of Dahlia’s breath, was more unbearable than the screaming blood of a thousand agiels._

*

Kahlan hadn’t seen Cara in so much pain since the earliest hours of the spell, when she had re-endured her childhood breaking.

It shouldn’t have surprised her; Zedd had explained countless times that Cara had been broken twice, and that she would relive both of those breakings. He had told them both, at great length and to the best of his ability, precisely what to expect of the experience, and yet Kahlan still found herself floored by the depth of stunned grief she felt as she watched Cara sway and whimper as though she was once again a small and frightened child.

Beside her, Richard was shaking with quiet horror. He’d seen Cara when she’d been sick, but he hadn’t seen her in pain. Not like this, nothing even close. It offered Kahlan a strange kind of solace to see the Seeker so affected by the sight; she felt less ashamed of the wrenching spasms that tore through her heart, knowing that Richard was reeling as well.

She was already moving to Cara’s side, gently shifting the trembling Mord-Sith until she rested in her lap. Not tearing her eyes from Cara, or stopping her ministrations as she gently brushed the hair from her face, she addressed Richard. She didn’t wait for his soft-spoken murmur of acknowledgement, nor did she move, speaking to him as she would a servant, because she knew that he wouldn’t be offended.

“There should be a cloth in the basin,” she told him. “Wet it, and bring it over here.”

She didn’t mention the fact that the ‘cloth’ in question had come from her own dress, nor did she mention the fact that she had only used it on Cara once before and knew beyond doubt that it would do nothing to ease Cara’s suffering now, just as it had done nothing then. She wanted – _needed_ – to appear in control of this, needed to use Richard’s presence to ground and centre herself; as little as it would help, it was still better than nothing, and it would give her something to do.

To his credit, though not to Kahlan’s surprise at all, Richard obeyed her swiftly and without protest. As Cara made a tremulous sound of something that sounded like acknowledgement (whether of Kahlan’s presence or of something within the spell, she didn’t know and didn’t particularly care), Kahlan took the wetted scrap of fabric from Richard’s still-shaking hands and trailed its cooling surface gently across Cara’s sweat-soaked face.

“It’ll all be over soon,” she murmured. “Zedd said he cast the spell of undoing not long after you were re-broken. You’ll be back with us soon, Cara, I promise. You’ll be home soon.”

Cara exhaled tightly, breath warm against the crook of Kahlan’s neck, and Kahlan again allowed Richard’s presence to strengthen her, and keep her from melting at the tenuous sensation. She needed to focus, to concentrate, to be all the things that nobody else could be. For Cara.

“Richard...” Cara whispered shakily.

Kahlan felt her heart stop. “He’s here,” she promised softly. “He’s right here.”

Cara swallowed. “...Kahlan...”

Her voice cracked, almost dissolving completely, and Kahlan was once again staggered by the pure depth of emotion in the twin syllables of her name; how did Cara, so unschooled in the art of feelings, manage to inject so many into such a small word?

“...and Zedd...” she finished, voice lifting to a crescendo of quiet resolve. “...are my... _family_.”

Behind her, still on his feet, Richard let out a strained gasp, and Kahlan had to remind herself that he hadn’t been there for Cara’s admission of friendship in the tomb, or the moments that followed, or anything else. She had to remember that Richard was only acquainted with their Cara, the one who would never (who _could_ never) admit these things.

“She’s...” he started, and then trailed helplessly off, staring at the two women before him as though he hadn’t seen either of them before.

Kahlan understood the sentiment; she wasn’t entirely sure she would be able to put what she’d witnessed into words either. She, at least, had seen the slow-burning evolution that had led to moments like this, but Richard hadn’t even had that. All he had – all he knew – was a Cara who still cut herself off from humanity, despite still being so much softer than she had once been, and Kahlan knew too just well how marked a change this Cara was from the one that he knew so well.

“She’s so much,” Kahlan whispered, wishing that could express even some tiny fraction of what she felt. “She’s... beautiful. Spirits, Richard, she’s so beautiful.”

Ever the mistress of bad timing, Cara chose precisely that moment to head-butt her.

*

_Though she put on a brave face, Cara could tell that Dahlia was deeply wounded by her rejection. She had truly expected that her soft words and gentle caresses would be enough to coax Cara into compliance; she knew so very little of what her former sister had become that she had genuinely believed Cara didn’t remember the simplest basics of how Mord-Sith breaking worked._

_Pain. Punishment. Promise. Pleasure._

_Hadn’t Cara been among the most skilled of all their sisters in all four? Hadn’t she broken more young girls than Dahlia could dream of, using precisely those techniques? Who was Dahlia to assume that a year’s absence was enough to make her forget what she had spent a lifetime committing to perfect memory? It was embarrassing, how little Dahlia knew her. She, who knew Cara more intimately than any other in the world... and it turned out, she did not know her at all._

_Still, Dahlia was true to her promise._

_When Darken Rahl returned, rested and with renewed resolve, to take up the task of her breaking once more, his brutality had increased by what seemed like a hundredfold; without ever having to ask (not that she could have, even if she’d wanted to), Cara knew that it was because Dahlia had advised him, just as she had vowed she would, to apply himself more forcefully. Where before he had been masterfully manipulative, wounding with words far more deeply than with the blows that still rang in Cara’s ears, now he seemed to surrender all hopes at breaking her with his tongue and directed all his attention on the physical effects of fists, chains, and agiels._

_Anyone else may have broken under the raw violence of his ministrations, but not Cara. Not when her loyalties were still so clear in her mind, an impregnable shield that not even the most bone-crushing blows could break through. The man who strove so desperately to break her was not her master, and he was not her Lord Rahl. Her soul was bound to Richard, her heart belonged to Kahlan, and her mind was shaped by Zedd. She was theirs. They alone could break her... because they alone, in all the world, never would._

_She drifted in and out of consciousness, aware but not really knowing what was being done to her. She tasted blood in her mouth, but had no idea what he’d done to cause its flow. She felt pain, everywhere, but didn’t know whether it was a gift bestowed by his fists or the agiels he wielded so expertly, or something else entirely. Every part of her was screaming, begging for the tiniest wisp of relief, but she had no idea what he’d done to make it hurt so badly, or what he was doing to make her pass out again and again._

_Dimly, distantly, she realised that she’d died. Once, or maybe twice. She didn’t remember the circumstances, only recalled the moment she had been brought back, the brush of Dahlia’s lips against hers as she was revived with the breath of life, the heated relish in Rahl’s eyes as he stepped between them and forced himself into her line of sight so that he was all she could see._

_It wouldn’t work. He could kill her a thousand times, a hundred thousand, and her would still not succeed. Her mind was filled to bursting with visions of Richard, of Kahlan, of Zedd, of all three of them. The mere thought of them, of any one of them or of all three together, gave her strength. Rahl could not understand that, and so he would never be able to cut through it. For all his prowess, all his skill, all his impressive talents when it came to torture, despite not being a Mord-Sith himself, for all knew of pain and breaking... he simply was not good enough._

_He was losing his temper, she knew. More and more, the blows were coming without precision, without efficiency, and with the blunted edge of blind rage. He had expected her to be broken by now, and the knowledge that he was growing frustrated only served to reinforce her will to survive. In her head, Richard nodded his approval. Kahlan smiled, not her Confessor’s smile, but that beautiful smile that had once been only for Richard (and occasionally for Zedd), but had lately been shared with Cara too. Zedd quirked his eyebrow, surprised but impressed._

_They were so proud of her. It made her proud of herself._

_“I know what you’re doing, Cara.”_

_Rahl’s voice cut through her thoughts, and she struggled to refocus them, her mind flailing for purchase like it was hanging from the edge of a cliff. She couldn’t allow herself to be distracted by him, couldn’t allow the silky malice in his voice to tear her away from the people who cared about her. They were proud, she reminded herself, over and over until the word lost meaning. They were proud of her, and they cared about her. Richard and Kahlan were coming for her. Zedd was still alive. She clung to the thoughts, the certainty, like the lifelines they were._

_“You’re dividing your mind,” Rahl pressed, and if he wasn’t so angry, she could tell he would have been mocking her._

_He plunged the agiel in deep, the scream of it ricocheting through Cara as though she was made of paper. Painful. Excruciating. Blinding. Familiar. She forced herself, even as her eyes rolled back, to focus on the meaning behind the searing and burning of flesh, to hear the words Rahl was uttering. He was trying to tear down the walls of her self-preservation, she knew, but his rage-fuelled efforts were having exactly the opposite effect; through all his efforts to destroy the barriers she’d built up, he was only drawing her back to them. Reminding her of what she’d been thinking about before the pain and his voice had cut through._

_Her friends._

_Kahlan, at Stowcroft, seeing her as if for the first time, eyes widening as she watched the track of the lone tear Cara had allowed to escape despite her best efforts to still its progress. Kahlan, who, even then, had seen something within her that was worth saving. Kahlan, again. Smiling now, eyes bright, expressive, more beautiful than any night wisp. Kahlan, who could melt Cara’s insides with just a look._

_Zedd, then, not-quite smiling. The corners of his lips lifting just slightly, but it was his eyes that bore the weight of his faith. Ancient, hooded with the kind of wisdom Cara would never know. Zedd was the wisest man that Cara had ever met, and he believed in her._

_Finally, Richard. In the heat of battle, Sword of Truth in his hands and his eyes locked on her. Long before any of them had ever had any reason to trust her at all, much less care for her, Richard had. He wasn’t smiling, wasn’t gazing at her with the love or affection that she’d come to notice in his eyes and Kahlan’s in recent months... but he was looking at her as though she was something more than all she’d ever been. As though she was human._

_“You’re thinking about your friends,” Rahl went on, relentless, and the ice in his voice carved through the flowing divinity of her memories._

_As the room returned, bringing with it the agiel and the man before her, so too did the screaming pain. She wanted to close her eyes, but it was weakness. If she closed her eyes, Rahl would see just how much she was suffering; he would draw strength from her agony, and know exactly what to do to capitalise on it. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing how badly brutalised she truly was._

_It didn’t matter; the bastard wasn’t finished with her, anyway._

_“But happy thoughts about Richard,” he snarled, finally finding enough control to sound cruel as well as angry, “are_ not _going to protect you.”_

_“They already have,” she managed, struggling to focus her eyes._

_With every ounce of strength left in her, she found enough energy to move the elusive half-inch it took to fix her gaze on her hated oppressor. She wanted to see his face as she spoke, to see the rage in his eyes when he realised how far from broken she still was, and how completely he was failing; Darken Rahl, she knew, hated nothing quite as much as failure._

_“And, if you were half the Lord Rahl he is,” she told him, “you wouldn’t have to break someone to get her to do what you want.”_

_She couldn’t really see at all, but she could see enough to relish the way he flinched. Every part of her was crying out in pain, but she forced herself to smile through it, letting him know beyond all doubt that there was more fight left in her than there was in him, even as he rose to the bait and thrust the agiel in deep once more._

_Without the split in her mind to protect her, the pain was indescribably sharp and inescapably hot. She felt herself starting to slip into the abyss, felt the warm hand of unconsciousness wrap itself around her throat, and fought against it. Not now. Not when she was making her point so beautifully. Not with Rahl’s eyes wild with fire and fury and so many things that broke his concentration._

_She tried to laugh. Coughed instead, acid thick in the back of her throat, and waited for him to finish his assault. Waited, though it felt like a hundred thousand lifetimes, for him to wrench his arm back and glare at her (seeking out weakness, just as she knew he would). Watched his vision-hazed features tighten at the sight of her, accepting his defeat without admitting it._

_Then, with the pain a fading memory, dissolving to the blood-churning ache of a wound that she knew would fester (and yet still be more bearable than the press of that cursed agiel), she did laugh._

_The sound was soft, barely audible at all, but it was enough. Enough to show Darken Rahl that, for all his efforts, for every burn or bruise or break, for every drop of blood spilled, for every infected wound, for every death, she was the one in control. She was still stronger than him. She was more powerful, stronger, better. She, his one-time servant, was more than he could ever dream of._

_In the same moment as Rahl drew back his fist, preparing for yet another barrage, Dahlia and her sisters appeared, and Cara almost laughed again._

_For all her bitterness towards Cara for refusing the gift of her affection, it seemed that Dahlia was still just as swift as ever to cut into her Lord Rahl’s efforts to break the woman she had once cared for. It seemed almost instinctive, the way Dahlia cut him off before he could lay a hand on Cara, as if she didn’t even realise she was doing it. Even unconsciously, it seemed that, for all her angry humiliation, all of the great many reasons she had to want Cara broken... it was still more than Dahlia could do to stand by and watch her be broken._

_It would be the last time she was able to protect her._

*

“Who knew?” Richard murmured.

Kahlan blinked, turning away from Cara’s pain-lined features to face the Seeker. He was frowning thoughtfully, a touch of awe and the ghost of sorrow on his face; it had been a long time, Kahlan realised, since she’d seen him look so saddened by anything except her. It was refreshing, if no less tragic, to see him so affected by somebody else. By Cara, who was every bit as devoted to him as Kahlan was, who was every bit as willing to die for him as Zedd (even if she wasn’t, technically speaking, quite so willing to stay that way), who was as much a part of his family as either of them.

“What?” she asked absently.

“Who knew?” he repeated. “How much she cared. How much we meant to her.” He sighed, tormented, and gently prised the damp scrap of cloth from Kahlan’s hands. “I’ve been in one of their temples. You were the only thing that kept them from breaking me. You know that.”

She did, and her heart skipped a beat at the memory.

“But she’s one of them,” Richard went on, sounding increasingly awestruck. “She’s already been broken once. It should’ve been...” He trailed off, and distracted himself by gently pressing the cloth to Cara’s brow. “What they’re doing to her...”

“You’re surprised she didn’t break,” Kahlan said, suddenly numb. “Seeing it, you think she should have. You expected that she’d let them break her. Even knowing how loyal she is, how willing to serve you... to _die_ for you, Richard... you think she—”

“I wouldn’t have blamed her for it,” he said, cutting her off quickly. “Kahlan, I know you’ve watched her through all this, I know you’ve seen her suffering, I know you think you know better than me how much pain she’s in right now, just how close she is to falling over the edge... but I’ve _lived_ it. I’ve been through it, Kahlan.” He stopped, catching his breath, then pressed on. “I know her pain, just as well you do, and it’s not because I’ve been here watching it for almost four days like you have. I know it because I went through it myself. I know exactly how much devotion – how much _love_ – it takes to resist what they’re doing to her.”

Kahlan looked from him to Cara and back again. Richard’s eyes were on Cara, fixed with rapt attention on the line of sweat that was inching a slow trail down the side of her face, and then on the cloth as he brought it down to wipe the rogue drops of moisture away. He looked evasive, almost uncharacteristically so, and it took her a long moment to figure out why.

“You don’t think our Cara would’ve had enough,” she said, suddenly angry. “The Cara we know. _Our_ Cara, Richard. You think, if Rahl had taken her, if this had happened to us, here, in this world... you think he would have broken her. Like this, without the need for powerful magic. You think she would’ve let herself be broken.”

“I don’t know,” he conceded quietly.

The accusation struck far harder than she’d expected it to. She should have conceded Richard’s point, she knew; she had seen too many differences between the two versions of Cara, had collated in her mind all the countless ways they could never be the same person. A Cara who had been able to voice her feelings, who’d been able to tell a Confessor that she considered her a friend, who’d allowed herself (mistaken as it was) to develop genuine feelings for another human being... that was a Cara who knew and understood love.

Her Cara, a Cara who had needed a spell, who’d needed to go through almost four days of suffering and self-inflicted torture on the off-chance that it would teach her to understand the conflicts burning within her own heart, a Cara who needed magic to tell her what feeling was... as much as it pained Kahlan to admit it, she should have been able to see Richard’s point. Her Cara was not ready, not like the other Cara had been, to have her heart tested like this.

If she had been asked, before all this, whether she believed that Cara (her Cara, the only Cara she’d ever known) cared enough about her companions to withstand the trials of a breaking for them... Kahlan truly wasn’t sure what answer she would have given.

“It doesn’t matter,” Richard was saying, voice worming its way through her thoughts before she had a chance to come around to his way of thinking. “Whether she would or wouldn’t. It doesn’t matter.”

“Because it never happened,” Kahlan sighed, as though that argument would somehow fix the mutinous thoughts Richard had incited.

“No,” he said, pressing the cloth back into her hand and climbing stiffly to his feet as she resumed the attentions he had been laving on Cara’s pain-fevered brow.

Kahlan blinked. “Then why?”

“Because,” he said, choosing his words with obvious care, “she’s seen it now. All the things she was missing, all those emotions she doesn’t understand. She’ll come out of it stronger, Kahlan. Just like she said she would. She’ll come out of it, and she’ll be able to say everything she never could.” As dedicated as her focus on Cara was, Kahlan still noticed the sudden troubled hitch of his breathing. “She’ll be able to tell you what you wanted to hear, all the things she wanted to tell you. She’ll be able to be what you need her to be.”

“It’s not about that,” Kahlan said, though she didn’t believe it any more than he did. “It’s everything, Richard. It...”

“It’s Cara,” he finished for her, and the depth of honest affection in him, for them both, washed over her like a balm. “It’s just Cara.”

And it was.

But, of course, it didn’t last.

Beneath Kahlan’s fingertips, the muscles in Cara’s jaw went suddenly rock-rigid, her eyes snapping wide open. Kahlan opened her mouth to speak, though she had no idea what she wanted to say (nothing, everything, _something_ ), but was cut off before she had the chance to think of anything by Cara’s sudden scream.

Kahlan had never heard a scream like it in all her life.

“What’s—” Richard started, voicing her own worries perfectly, but he too was stopped from voicing his thoughts by another soul-shattering howl.

“Cara,” Kahlan breathed, holding her as tightly and as closely as she could, holding on for dear life, even as Cara’s entire body began to convulse. “Cara. It’s all right. It’s all right, Cara. I’m here. We’re both here. Richard and me. Richard and Kahlan. We’re here. Cara, we’re here. You’re all right. You’re all right. You’re...” Her eyes stung. “Please, Cara. Please, be all right.”

A heartbeat. Cara gulped down air.

“Easy,” Kahlan soothed, fighting the panic that was threatening to tear her asunder. “Easy, Cara. Breathe through it. Just breathe. Just—”

Again, though, the moment was over before it had even begun, and when Cara threw her head back again, the scream went on for what seemed like forever. On and on, until Kahlan couldn’t help thinking that she was the one being tortured instead of Cara, because there couldn’t conceivably be any pain greater than what she felt arcing through her with every shuddering shriek that tore from the woman shaking in her arms.

It wasn’t until the fourth or fifth wave of near-endless agony that Kahlan looked into Cara’s eyes, and realised that they’d lost every last trace of their spell-shrouded whiteness. They were clear and wide, shot through with pain, but pure. The colour of the ocean, the colour of home. Cara’s eyes were her own again. And that could only mean one thing.

She was back. After four long days, she was back.

And yet, Kahlan realised, she was still screaming.


	31. Chapter 31

“Cara?”

Again, she screamed. And then again. And again, until Kahlan was sure they would both die before the pain ended.

“Cara!”

Above her, Richard was twitching undecidedly on his feet, looking as though he wanted nothing more than to drop to his knees and pull both women into his arms, but tangibly aware of the fact that it would do no good to either of them. Kahlan only glanced at him briefly, but the torment in his eyes was enough to rend her soul almost as deeply as the sound of Cara’s near-deafening shrieks.

“Richard,” she said, not bothering to try and conceal the way her voice was trembling on every syllable. “Richard, get Zedd. Now!”

To his credit, he didn’t hesitate. Almost before Kahlan had even finished issuing the instruction, he was halfway towards the door, and, by the time she’d turned her head the half-inch it needed to face Cara again, he was gone. And Kahlan was left, alone and helpless, with the screaming, hurting Mord-Sith, conscious for the first time in four days, and yet still so completely unaware. Why was she so unaware? Why hadn’t Zedd warned her of this?

“Cara,” she said. “Cara, please...”

Desperate and terrified, she took Cara’s face in her hands, holding on as tightly as she could to keep her from pulling away. She was startled by just how bright Cara’s eyes were, how breathtakingly beautiful they seemed after what seemed like a lifetime of expressionless spell-blind whiteness... but, of course, she didn’t have time to dwell on that right then. Not with yet another scream already forcing its way to the surface of Cara’s throat, pouring from her in an irrepressible wave of agony.

“Cara,” she pleaded. “Cara, look at me. Please, look at me. You’re home. It’s over, Cara. You’re home.”

The screaming stopped. The sound shattered as though sliced clean through with the sharp edge of a blade. And then, breathtakingly—

“...Kahlan?”

“Thank the Creator!” Kahlan cried, unable to stop herself, or to stem the tide of tears that cascaded down her cheeks at the sudden blossoming recognition in Cara’s agony-hazed eyes. “Yes, Cara, it’s me. You’re back. You’re safe now. I’m here. I’m here, and I’ve got you.”

Every visible inch of Cara was trembling with so much emotion that it was a miracle she could contain it all. Confusion, grief, terror, and the lingering spectre of a pain so profound that Kahlan knew she would never be able to comprehend the scope of it. A thousand others, too, each overriding the one that came before, until it became a whitewash of indistinct suffering plastered across sweat-soaked features. Cara looked worse than awful, as though she’d just woken from a lifetime of nightmares, nightmares without end and without any hope of salvation. It was an analogy that Kahlan realised a beat too late probably wasn’t completely inaccurate, and she felt a pull at her chest to know there wasn’t a thing she could do to ease the transition.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, hating how helplessly pitiful the question sounded. Could she really not think of anything else?

Cara stared at her, unfocused, and Kahlan could tell at a glance that she was more than a little delirious. She was visibly trying to form words, to answer the question or else to ask one of her own, but her tongue seemed to be stuck to the roof of her mouth. She didn’t seem able to will her mouth into doing her bidding at all, and Kahlan watched sadly as she futilely clenched and unclenched her jaw for several long moments before finally giving up with a frustrated whine.

It was worrying, but not very surprising, and Kahlan tried to push her concerns aside and be patient; Cara needed patience now, and she certainly didn’t need Kahlan to be smothering her with panic. She wanted to take hold of Cara’s arms and shake her until she said she was all right, wanted it more than anything, but she knew that wouldn’t help; quite the opposite, she knew it would more than likely be flat-out damaging, and so (with excruciating effort) she waited.

“I don’t know,” Cara managed eventually, and her voice was so thick and hoarse that Kahlan reflexively fumbled for a waterskin.

“It’s all right,” she assured her, fingers closing over the skin and pressing it with gentle insistence into Cara’s still-shaking hands. “Just take it easy. Go slow.”

“How long?” Cara rasped, and there was still so much pain in her voice that Kahlan almost expected her to break off and start screaming again. “How long was I...?”

“Nearly four days,” Kahlan explained, then tilted her head towards the ignored waterskin. “Drink, Cara.”

Blinking hard (whether in confusion or a desperate bid at holding back the tears that were shimmering behind her eyes, Kahlan didn’t know), Cara stared at the container in her hand. Everything she did was so slow, so effortful; it seemed almost as if she was frightened that the slightest motion would be enough to kill her; given what she’d just witnessed, Kahlan supposed it wasn’t an entirely unfounded concern, at least in Cara’s torture-fresh mind. She longed to help, but all she could do was reach up and brush the hair out of Cara’s too-wet eyes, and gesture once again towards the ignored waterskin.

“I’m not thirsty,” Cara mumbled, sounding distant, and flinched violently as Kahlan repeated the touch of her fingertips against her hair.

“I know you’re not,” Kahlan retorted, having anticipated exactly that response; in any world, Cara was nothing if not contrary. “But you should drink something anyway.”

Cara closed her eyes, shaking hard, as if her body was trying to reject something alien inside it. “Kahlan, stop.”

“Stop what?” Kahlan asked.

“ _Everything_ ,” Cara replied, and it was almost a whimper.

Feeling wounded, but knowing better than to press anything (and understanding, though it hurt, just how desperately Cara probably needed her personal space right then), Kahlan sat back on her heels, scooting backwards enough to give Cara what she hoped was enough room to catch her breath.

Seemingly at war with herself, Cara twitched at the loss of proximity, but looked relieved. She was still shivering, eyes still dark with haunted pain and just skirting the edge of tears, but she was breathing a little easier, and Kahlan took that as a good sign.

She just needed to be patient, she reminded herself. Just needed to keep her distance, give Cara time and space to find herself in a world that must seem alien to her now, offer to be there if she was needed, but not feel hurt if she wasn’t. For all the trauma she’d witnessed so close to first-hand, she knew it was still beyond her capacity to comprehend exactly what Cara had been through, to say nothing of what she was feeling, and so she could only do as she was asked.

She hadn’t expected this. She hadn’t been deluded enough to believe that Cara would simply fall into her arms and purge herself of the undoubtedly countless emotions that she could practically see surging through her like white-water rapids, but she hadn’t expected this. Dismissal. Rejection.

Part of her – and no small part – understood it, accepted it, and was willing to stay as far away from Cara as she needed, if that was what she asked for... but the vast majority of her wanted nothing more than to close the distance she’d just put between them, to pull Cara into the tightest embrace she could manage, just as she had so many times when the other woman had been locked in the spell, and to caress away the pain and the fear, to kiss away whatever else she was feeling, to do everything within her power to free Cara of her traumas. She wanted to help make things simple again, and it broke her heart in two to see that Cara so clearly needed her at arms’ length if that was going to happen.

It was to her simultaneous relief and annoyance that Richard chose that moment to return with an uneasy-looking Zedd in tow. Even through the space between them, Kahlan felt in her skin the way Cara flinched (almost frightened, she was sure) as the door opened, and the two of them stood up in near-perfect unison.

“Cara,” Zedd said, and Kahlan had never heard so many conflicting emotions in one word before.

Relief, self-hatred, pain, sorrow, guilt, hope, discomfort, curiosity, and a thousand others, almost as many as were still rippling through Cara’s, all magnified in the age-lined eyes of the wizard. Had she not been witness to exactly how much damage Zedd had caused, Kahlan would almost have felt bad for him; nobody should have to bear the weight of what seemed to be pressing down on him... and yet, he was the one who had inflicted it seemingly without thinking on Cara. It was fitting, she decided with no small amount of malice, that he should be feeling its effects as well.

“Are you all right?” he asked Cara after a moment, speaking too quietly.

Some small part of Kahlan expected Cara to launch herself across the room and drive both of her agiels down Zedd’s throat for what he’d done; it didn’t take much to make Cara violently aggressive at the best of time, and even Kahlan herself was struggling to control her own vicious impulses at the sight of the man who had been the cause of all this. But she didn’t, nor did she seem to even be entertaining the notion of doing so. She just seemed... lost. Small. Broken.

“I don’t know,” Cara repeated, still sounding as if she was speaking from across a great distance. She swayed a little on her feet, and Kahlan had to fight to keep from diving across the room in bid at supporting her. “It’s... I...”

“You’re confused,” Zedd told her.

Kahlan had to bite down hard on her tongue to keep from shouting in unfettered outrage at his having the gall to tell Cara, of all people, how she was feeling. How could he possibly know what she was, simply because he felt some tiny fragment of it in his own guilty conscience? How could he have the least idea of how much trauma Cara had endured as a result of his spellcasting? How dare he presume to know the first thing about her, about anything, and throw his worthless words at her as if he had any right to?

The Mother Confessor’s obvious fury did little to still his tongue, though, and he went on unperturbed, though ever more softly. “You’re confused, and you’re afraid... and, I’d imagine, you probably have a headache the likes of which you’ve never known in your life.”

Cara didn’t protest like Kahlan expected her to, but nor did she confirm what the wizard was saying. She just stood there, swaying and looking deeply miserable.

“Sit down,” Zedd instructed, gesturing to the bed, and his expression made it clear that he wouldn’t accept a word of argument from her this time.

Fortunately for them both, Cara seemed to lack strength enough to fight him just then, least of all on a point so trivial as where she needed to sit, and she settled herself on the edge of the bed with barely more than the flickering ghost of a scowl to mark her irritation.

“Good,” he said, and only Zedd could speak to a Mord-Sith as if she were a child, and still not sound patronising. “Now – if you can – relax.”

Cara twitched, and her shoulders slumped; Kahlan assumed that was the closest to ‘relaxed’ she was going to get for a long time, and she heaved a baleful sigh on the Mord-Sith’s behalf. Zedd, for his part, seemed to think the same, and leaned in to examine her. Crossing the room to stand by Richard and clutch his hand as though it was the only thing keeping her alive, Kahlan watched as the wizard waved his hands in seemingly purposeless but elaborate gestures, in front of Cara’s still-scowling face.

Neither of them spoke, though the discomfort on Cara’s face was as apparent as the worry on Zedd’s, and Kahlan was grateful beyond words for the way Richard squeezed her hand, murmuring barely-formed snatches of sympathy in her ear, not quite sentences but just enough to let her know that he understood how difficult it was for her to stand idly by and watch as Zedd stared at Cara like she was a side of beef. And not even really like that, she realised somewhat bitterly, knowing as she did that Zedd would have been affectionate and loving towards a side of beef, where he was little more than clinically thoughtful as he magically examined the Mord-Sith.

“You’ll survive,” he said at long last.

Had he used that same line on anyone else in the world, it would have sounded calloused and unsympathetic. Used on Cara, though, Kahlan knew that it was exactly what she needed to hear, and her features softened almost imperceptibly at the wizard’s subtle attempt at making her feel like even a fragment of herself.

“I’m sure you’ve endured far worse than this in the last few days,” he went on, and Kahlan almost missed the way his eyes darkened with unuttered apologies. “You just need to try and take it easy for a while, as impossible as I’m sure that is for you.” 

Cara didn’t reply, though Kahlan could tell by the way she was chewing at the inside of her cheek that she desperately wanted to, and Zedd turned away from her when it became apparent that she could not voice her thoughts. He seemed to take her extended silence as a request for solitude (a mistake that Kahlan knew better than to make, though she made no effort to correct him), and it was only when Cara made a choked sound in her throat, raw and helpless, that he turned back to regard her with open-mouthed curiosity.

“You want to know,” she forced out, and Kahlan could read the need to be right in her voice; whether or not Zedd wanted to know, she could tell that Cara was desperate to say it. “You want to know what they did. What kind of magic they used to break me. You’re curious.”

To his credit, Zedd had the decency to look genuinely offended at that.

“There’ll be plenty of time to talk about this when you’re recovered,” he reminded her, gently chastising, and earned himself a glare for his troubles. “You’ve been through a lot, Cara.” Briefly, as if remembering that they weren’t alone for the first time, he turned to frown at Kahlan. “You both have. You need to rest, not dwell on all of this. We can discuss it in the morning.”

“Wizard,” Cara snapped, sounding almost like herself, “I have been _resting_ for four days. I don’t wish to rest another moment.”

“Cara,” Zedd returned, and Kahlan could see the power play laid out between them like a particularly challenging card game. “Whatever you may have been doing for the last four days, you have _not_ been resting. Your body may have been in situ...” Kahlan almost laughed at that, replaying the countless times Cara had inadvertently tried to injure Kahlan or herself by diving like a bird across the room. “...but your mind and your spirit have been exerting themselves in ways that you can’t imagine. You need to rest. It’s not a suggestion.”

“Do not,” Cara snarled, “tell me what to do. Unburden me of this headache and leave me in peace, if you don’t wish to hear what I would have told you.”

“Believe me, Cara,” Zedd said. “If it were that easy to unburden you of anything, we wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.” He sighed, turning away. “I can’t force you to rest if you plan on being stubborn, but, if you don’t, I can assure you it’ll only get worse.”

The headache in question must have been causing Cara more discomfort than she wanted to admit, because she grumbled moodily, but ultimately conceded; dropping her head into her hands, she massaged her temples almost angrily, and Kahlan wished she could summon the strength to demand that Zedd take the pain from her.

“Bastard,” Cara muttered, though Kahlan could tell she didn’t really mean it; Zedd seemed to know too, because he accepted the insult with a careless smile, and said nothing to further his point.

It impressed Kahlan, and made her jealous as well, that Zedd knew exactly what to say to Cara. He had witnessed only few moments of the spell’s effect, and those had come under Kahlan’s heaviest protestations, but somehow, he seemed so much more intimately acquainted with both sides of the Mord-Sith (the one that was and the one that wasn’t) than Kahlan herself was.

She had been the one to watch the spell unfold, to witness the life and pain of the Cara that had ceased to exist, just as she had been the one who had travelled for over a year beside the Cara that Zedd had never known, while he knew only that other world’s Cara. She, Kahlan, should have known the woman before her more intimately than anyone, more intimately even than her own skin... and yet still, it seemed, the wizard knew her just as well ( _better_ ) than she did; still, he knew exactly what to say, and how to say it, to make Cara feel like she was home.

As the wizard turned away, seemingly with the intention to depart the room completely, Cara lurched off the bed.

“Wizard,” she blurted out, clearly trying to sound as though she was doing him a great service simply by addressing him, but ultimately coming across as simply exhausted. “I intend to take a bath.”

Zedd raised an eyebrow and waited, seemingly aware of the fact that Cara wasn’t finished, and that she was bracing herself for the humiliation of continuing. Kahlan, for her part, could scarcely believe what she was hearing at all.

“I assume that meets with your approval,” Cara went on after a moment.

She sounded sullen, almost petulant, and Kahlan almost choked at the absurdity of hearing Cara asking for Zedd’s permission to do anything at all, much less something as simple as taking a bath. Kahlan wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know how troubled Cara must be if she was seeking out Zedd’s approval for such silly things.

“It does,” Zedd agreed quickly, as though afraid she would take the query back if he left it too long. “In fact, it sounds like a very good idea.” His eyes softened just slightly. “Take care of yourself, Cara, even if it’s just for a few hours. You may be a Mord-Sith, but even you have your limits... and I’d be willing to wager this spell has passed them all.”

Cara rolled her eyes, but acknowledged the wizard’s words with a pained half-shrug. Kahlan expected her to jump on him with one of her trademark jibes, but she just stood there quietly, wobbling, and waited until Zedd’s attention was directed elsewhere once again; she looked so exhausted when left by herself, so drained and strained, it was almost more than Kahlan could do to keep watching from such a distance. It wouldn’t help to approach her, she knew, and Cara needed her space now more than she ever had before... but knowledge of the fact didn’t make it cut less deeply, and it didn’t make her ache any less to leap in and take it all away.

“I’ll go,” Richard offered, genuinely trying to be helpful. “I’ll ask the innkeeper to get a bath drawn up for you. I can—”

“I can ask him myself,” Cara said, though Kahlan (and, it seemed, everyone else in the room) could tell that she was barely able to stand, much less make her way down to the bar and negotiate with the tavern’s proprietor. “I don’t need your help, Richard. Or anyone else’s. I don’t need anything.”

“I know that,” Richard said gently.

“Cara,” Kahlan said, using every ounce of self-control she possessed to remain where she was. “Richard’s just trying to be helpful. He’s the Seeker. The innkeeper’s more likely to listen to him, and get things done quickly. That’s all he’s saying. He’s not suggesting you’re incapable, not at all.”

“I’ll do it...” Cara repeated, a low hiss of pain-kissed anger, “... _myself_.”

Kahlan couldn’t help feeling, even as every fibre of her being insisted she was being paranoid, that the heat of Cara’s insistence, the wild determination that seemed to flourish and burn within the Mord-Sith despite even her own judgment, was far more for her benefit than anyone else’s. She wasn’t trying to prove herself to Zedd or to Richard, Kahlan was certain of it. She was trying to prove herself, her independence and her capability, to the Mother Confessor. To Kahlan, and to Kahlan alone.

Kahlan couldn’t fathom it, and she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to. All she knew was that, after everything that she’d witnessed – everything she’d seen, heard, felt, endured, suffered – it struck like something so much worse than a blow to be cast aside so swiftly now that it was all over.

“All right,” Richard agreed; he was forcing himself to sound infinitely more tolerant of the situation than he truly was, Kahlan could tell, because he seemed to know just as well as she did that arguing with Cara when she was trying to prove herself would only end in disaster. “But at least let me go with you. He’s a fan. He’ll be more co-operative if he thinks the request is coming from the Seeker himself.”

It amused Kahlan (though she’d never admit it aloud) that, with the rift sealed and the Keeper defeated, Richard had grown far more acceptant of the praise that was lavished upon him by admirers across the Midlands. He was every bit as modest as he’d ever been, of course, but, without the pressure of his quest weighing down upon his shoulders, he finally seemed willing to accept the fact that he might have actually done some good in the world. And not a moment too soon, Kahlan couldn’t help thinking; he had more than earned it.

Much to her surprise, Cara didn’t argue with Richard, acquiescing just as readily (and just as moodily) to his suggestion as she had acquiesced to Zedd a moment earlier; normally, Kahlan would have just assumed her willingness to bow to Richard’s will came from her loyalty to him as a Mord-Sith to her Lord Rahl, but she wasn’t so sure of that this time. Not when she had been just as quick to seek approval from Zedd (who, Kahlan reasoned with ever-increasing anger, was the one person in the room she should never have willingly sought anything from) just moments ago. Not when she was so subdued, so uncharacteristically quiet, so close to genuinely pleading for guidance...

Pleading for guidance, Kahlan realised once more, from everyone except _her_. From the Seeker, in whose service she had worked so hard to prove her own merit. From the wizard, who had caused all this misery in the first place. But not from Kahlan. Not from the Mother Confessor. Not from the one person in the room who had been through everything with her, who had watched and witnessed and suffered through it all. Not from her. Oh, no, not from _her_.

The thought caused a bubble of jealous nausea to churn in her stomach, and her heart leaped up into her throat before she could stop it.

“Cara,” she blurted out. “I...”

“Not now,” Cara snapped urgently, fighting to hold herself steady, as if the mere sound of Kahlan’s voice was enough to topple her.

She didn’t say anything more after that, not that Kahlan expected her to, and she watched as Cara instead focused all of her attention on Richard. She glared at him, though it was barely a shadow of her usual ire; she was clearly trying to silently demand that he get moving already, and to make the point that she herself would be leaving in a matter of moments whether he chose to follow her or not, but all that Kahlan could glean from the expression was how much pain she was in.

Richard, by contrast, seemed to read exactly what Cara wanted him to read, and he turned to the door with a wordless nod.

With more patience than she had ever imagined she could possess, Kahlan waited until the door clicked shut behind them before she turned the force of her feelings towards Zedd; she could tell by the tortured look in his eyes that he had been anticipating her wrath, and had probably been bracing himself for it from the moment he realised they were to be left alone together. Kahlan was glad of that; it meant she wouldn’t have to be kind to him, knowing that he was prepared for the full weight of her ire.

“Zedd,” she said, the instant she knew there was no chance of their being overheard, not waiting a moment longer than she had to. “What’s the matter with her?”

She felt her eyes darken with a sense of foreboding that was far too close to magic for her liking, and forced herself to breathe deep. Breathe. She could not allow herself to get so worked up that she lost sight of who she was and allowed the force of the Con Dar to rip through her, at least not before Zedd even had a chance to defend himself. She needed to remain in control, however difficult it was, however loudly the wounded soul in her cried out to be heard, however desperately she wanted to destroy the wizard, and every other thing in either world that had ever caused Cara to hurt.

For his part, Zedd ignored her. Or, at the very least, he seemed to, switching tacks faster than Richard’s compass switched bearings.

“Richard said she was screaming?” he asked; Kahlan could tell by the tone of his voice that the question was an important one, but that didn’t stop the bitterness bubbling up within her at his refusal to answer her question before diving on her with one of his own.

“Like I’ve never heard anyone scream before,” she affirmed, trying to ignore the feeling, and the way her heart lurched with pain at the memory of those heart-stopping screams. “Like she was being torn apart.” She closed her eyes. “I’ve never heard anyone scream like that before, Zedd, not ever. It was...”

She trailed off, unable to finish, and Zedd didn’t push her. For a long time, neither of them said anything, Kahlan staring at Zedd and Zedd staring at the wall as though he was trying to read the secrets of the universe in its stained off-white surface. There was a shadow over his eyes, thoughtful darkness swimming beneath their aged pupils, and that was enough to tell Kahlan that she should just leave him alone with his musings until he was ready to voice them. Still, though, she worried, and the longer he was silent, the more fiercely the impatience burned within her.

“It shouldn’t have ended there,” he explained after what seemed like a lifetime. “It should have ended when I cast the spell of undoing, when I changed the world. That’s when the other Cara’s life ended, not before. But, believe me, Kahlan, there was no screaming when I cast that spell. I would never have cast it if there was the least chance of it hurting her. Please believe that.”

Kahlan did believe it; she remembered Cara’s screams too vividly, and knew that they couldn’t possibly have been borne of anything ( _anyone_ ) other than Darken Rahl.

“What does that mean?” she asked, and her voice was shaking.

“It means she brought herself out of the spell,” Zedd explained sadly. “Presumably when Rahl invoked whatever dark magic he used when traditional methods failed to break her. I’d guess – though it’s just a guess, mind you – that the pain was simply too great for her to withstand, even in the confines of her own mind, and so she brought herself out of it for fear of the damage it might have caused if she’d stayed there to endure it.”

Feeling her stomach lurch, Kahlan opened her mouth to question him further, but Zedd raised a hand to silence her.

“I don’t know what Rahl did to re-break her,” he said, as though anticipating exactly what Kahlan had wanted to ask. “And I don’t want her to explain it to me, however obvious it is that she wants to talk about it, because I’m not convinced she’s well enough to dwell on it yet. All I know it this – if the pain she felt was profound enough to break through even the effects of even my magic, to pull her out of a spell that she’d been in, without incident, for almost four days... it must be beyond imagining.”

“Oh, Cara,” Kahlan heard herself breathe, increasingly close to tears with every word that left Zedd’s mouth. She willed herself to remain calm, forced herself to meet his gaze, to remember that he was here to help and not hinder. “Is she going to be all right, Zedd? Can you do anything?”

“She needs time,” Zedd told her. “And rest. Neither of which she’s willing to accept, or acknowledge as being necessary. A spell of this magnitude always has effects... and, if she was in pain enough to bring herself out of it before she was supposed to, this one will have more than most. The best thing she can do is let her body rest, and allow her mind to heal in its own time, however loudly she may protest the idea. She needs to rest, and she needs to recover _naturally_. But she’s so stubborn.”

Kahlan forced a chuckle, but it was weak and melancholy. “She never knows what’s best for her,” she agreed with a sigh.

The tragic fondness in Zedd’s smile was almost enough to remind her that he had truly had Cara’s best interests at heart throughout this whole fiasco.

“No, she doesn’t,” he agreed, chuckling without humour. “We may have to be strict with her.”

“She won’t like it,” Kahlan warned him.

“She won’t,” Zedd affirmed. “But it’s infinitely preferable to the alternative.”

He didn’t elaborate on that point, but the way his face deflated as he spoke told Kahlan everything she needed to know; Cara’s stubbornness, if she insisted on clinging to it like the defence mechanism it was, would give her more than simply a headache.

They fell into silence after that; it wasn’t particularly comfortable, but it wasn’t wholly unpleasant either, and Kahlan felt the bubbling tension within her slowly but surely beginning to ebb away. Whatever terrible things Zedd had done (to Cara, and to everyone in her life by proxy), however much pain he’d caused, whatever suffering he’d inflicted on so many people he had the gall to call ‘friends’... she knew that he truly would go to the ends of the world and back again if he thought for a moment that it would still the tide of torment. He’d do anything, she could tell, to turn Cara’s pain, and Kahlan’s, into his own.

“I want to talk to her,” she said at last, and the words surprised her at least as much as they seemed to surprise him.

“She has a lot to process,” Zedd informed her gently. “Her own feelings, and the other Cara’s feelings, and they’re not necessarily the same thing. Her mind’s struggling to reconcile the woman she is with the woman whose life she remembers but who she is not. It’s difficult, Kahlan, and you’re at the very centre of all that she is right now.”

“Because she did it for me.”

The wizard nodded. “She’ll come around to you, my dear, and she’ll accept you again, but it’s going to take some time.” He paused, less than a heartbeat but long enough to gaze into what felt like Kahlan’s very soul. “And you should take that time as a gift, as well.”

“Why?” Kahlan asked, hating that she really didn’t know. “All I want to do is talk to her. Isn’t that why you made me sit through this, why you forced me to go through it with her? So I’d be able to hold her at the end of it, if she needed me, and tell her that I understood? So she’d know there was someone out there who knows exactly what she went through? I saw it all, Zedd. I lived it all along with her. All I want to do is be there for her, and let her be Cara. I just want _her_.”

“Kahlan.” There was no accusation in Zedd’s voice, only compassion, and it carved through Kahlan’s frustration like a chain of wizard’s fire through a wall of ice. “Cara’s not the only one who has a lot to process right now. It won’t do either of you any good to rush into a discussion that’s best left until neither of you are on the brink of collapsing from exhaustion.”

“It’s been almost four days,” she snapped, and it was only as the words tumbled from her lips that she realised how close to the grave she must sound... to say nothing of how close to it she felt. “Four days, Zedd, and all I’ve done is ‘process’. Every word she said, everything she did, all the pain she went through. I’ve processed and I’ve processed, and I’ve _processed_. There’s nothing left in me, Zedd. I need to talk to her, and I need to be with her. I need to sit in this room – in _any_ room – and talk to a Cara who can see me. I can’t process any more. I can’t, Zedd. I _can’t_.”

“You may find this hard to believe,” Zedd said with a sigh, “but I do understand what you’re feeling. How deeply you care about her.”

Kahlan opened her mouth to ask him what Richard had told him, what stupid remarks the Seeker had made about her feelings, to demand to know why he couldn’t simply leave it alone until she was ready to express how she felt for herself... but Zedd cut her off with a wave that was so dismissive, so careless, she realised it didn’t matter.

It wouldn’t have mattered if Richard had spilled every last word, complete with diagrams (and, knowing him, that wasn’t entirely outside the realm of possibility). It wouldn’t have mattered at all, whatever he’d said or done or explained, because... because, she realised, it wouldn’t have been news. Zedd, for all his convenient ignorance in so many things, already knew. And he probably had for a very, very long time.

Kahlan didn’t know whether to be relieved that the conversation she’d been dreading was irrelevant, or humiliated that she was the last person in all the world to know the innermost workings of her own heart.

“I may be old, Kahlan,” Zedd said, cutting into her self-deprecation and affirming her thoughts, “but I’m not a fool.”

“She needs to know,” Kahlan insisted, plaintive and prayerful. “Zedd, she went through it for me. She needs to know.”

“And she will,” he told her. “But impatience will only lead to more pain on both sides. Kahlan, neither of us can imagine what she’s going through, not even you. You can’t conceive of how much pressure is weighing down on her mind right now, and not just emotionally. I don’t doubt she cares for you just as deeply as she ever did, and perhaps even more so now... but this is not the time for indulging your sentiments.”

Kahlan closed her eyes, fighting back tears. She wanted to argue, but she was so very tired.

“Oh, dear one,” Zedd sighed, and Kahlan smiled despite herself at the gentle endearment; sometimes, she forgot that Zedd was not every bit as much her grandfather as he was Richard’s. “She’ll still be here in the morning. You both will be. Support her, do whatever she asks of you. Give her distance if that’s what she needs, but don’t force yourself on her. She’ll come to you eventually.”

“What if she doesn’t?”

Before the question had left her lips, Kahlan hadn’t realised just how much it had been weighing on her, and how much it had been frightening her. She had been prepared for a Cara who was damaged, who was broken and who needed Kahlan’s love and affection to repair her. She’d been prepared for – indeed, almost hoping for – a Cara who was weak and helpless and afraid, who could be healed by Kahlan alone, because Kahlan was the only one who could understand her. All those things, as dark as they would have been, she had been anticipating, almost expecting to welcome them.

What she’d got instead was rejection, and it lashed almost as deeply as the sight of Cara in pain. After everything she’d been made to witness, now that it was over, Cara could scarcely even look her in the eye, and Kahlan honestly didn’t know whether she wanted to feel angry or just heartbroken.

Zedd, in direct contrast to all her fears, was smiling with more confidence than she’d seen in him since before any of this had happened. He was alight, almost, with a depth of certainty that stole Kahlan’s breath. “She _will_.”

“How do you know?” she whispered sadly.

Zedd smiled. “Kahlan,” he said gently. “Nobody – not even a Mord-Sith – would put themselves through this much pain for another person if there was any chance at all that they might stop caring about them.”

The words, spoken aloud, struck Kahlan with all the force of a blow, and she braced herself against the wall to keep from falling. Had Cara, her Cara, truly held so much faith in the feelings she couldn’t even voice? Had the Cara that had been unable even to admit to feeling anything at all – even when they were on the brink of death in that damned airless tomb – truly been so secure, so confident in the strength of those unspoken feelings that she’d send herself to the Underworld and back more times than either of them could count in the space of four long days? Had she even realised how deep a commitment that was, or had it been so unconscious, so deeply ingrained within her heart and her soul that she hadn’t even realised it had existed at all?

“Whatever you feel for her, Kahlan,” Zedd said softly, cutting into her thoughts (and somehow managing to remain unobtrusive at the same time), “she feels for you. Possibly more. But she doesn’t understand, and it’s going to take time for her to—”

“—process,” Kahlan finished for him, rolling her eyes.

“Exactly,” he affirmed, though he seemed to know that the fact offered little comfort to the impatient Mother Confessor.

Thankfully, Richard chose that moment to return, effectually cutting off any further discussion of rest or processing or anything else.

“It’s all arranged,” he said without preamble, closing the door behind him even as Kahlan tried to squint through it for any signs of Cara.

Surely, she thought, Richard hadn’t left her alone. Hadn’t he seen how weak she was? Had he truly so little common sense that he’d leave an ailing friend, after four days in a trance suffering unimaginable horrors, alone for even a moment? Was he truly so stupid that he’d let Cara convince him she was all right?

“She’s bathing,” he went on, eyeing Kahlan as if he’d read her mind. “She’s just fine. Tired, a bit of a headache... but it’s nothing she’s not been through before. She’s just tired, Kahlan. She just needs to get some—”

“Don’t,” Kahlan snapped, “say ‘rest’.”

Richard actually laughed at that, and Kahlan couldn’t figure out whether she was annoyed or amused by that. “You sound just like her.”

Fighting the rising urge to place herself neatly between the two men and slam their heads together again and again until they stopped saying things she didn’t want to hear, Kahlan needlessly brushed down her skirts (if only to give her hands something to do) and took a long step towards the door.

“I’m going to go to her,” she announced firmly.

“Kahlan,” Zedd warned, “we’ve been through this.”

“Not like that!” she barked at him, struggling to keep from sounding even half as angry as she felt. “I just don’t think it’s safe for her to be alone right now, and I don’t think either of you should be enjoying her company while she’s bathing. That’s all.”

Her eyes met the wizard’s, blazing with challenge, daring him to object.

Ever clueless, Richard was glancing from Kahlan to Zedd and back again, looking very much like he was trying to figure out exactly how long he’d been out of the room for, and what could possibly have passed between them in so short a time as to be the cause of such conflict. Had she not been so fixed on Zedd, so determined to make her point and see him concede it, Kahlan would have almost pitied the poor Seeker; his chivalry always seemed to land him in positions designed to confuse and perplex him, and, rather predictably, now was no different.

“It’s a good idea,” he said blankly, as though he wasn’t quite certain which side he was supposed to be taking in this.

Kahlan beamed, letting him know with her eyes that he’d picked the right one. Zedd, by contrast, heaved a melodramatic sigh, one that told his grandson in no uncertain terms that not only had he chosen the wrong one, but that he would also be receiving a very long diatribe on exactly why. In any other situation, the juxtaposition (coupled as it was with a tangible increase in Richard’s confusion) would have been comical; in this case, however, it was anything but, and Kahlan felt a genuine pang of sympathy to the Seeker. None of this was his fault, and yet he was constantly finding himself in the middle of things that, though they weren’t about him, nonetheless seemed purpose-built to make him suffer even so.

“All right,” Zedd sighed at last, and Kahlan could see just how much of a bad idea he thought it was, despite his having been outnumbered. “Just... if you must talk to her...” His expression was tormented, but also genuinely concerned, and she supposed she was grateful for that at least, even if it did oppose all the things she wanted just then. “...talk with your head, Kahlan, not your heart.”

“I’m a Confessor, Zedd,” Kahlan reminded him pointedly. “The _Mother_ Confessor. I don’t think there’s anyone in the world, and certainly nobody in this room, more suited to think with their head when necessary. I don’t plan on pushing her, and I don’t plan on making things any more difficult for her than they already are.” She met his eyes, willing him to see the honesty in them. “I just don’t want her to hurt herself. That’s all. You have my word.”

“All right.” He nodded, quietly submissive; it was everything she could have hoped for. “Go to her, if you must.”


	32. Chapter 32

The inn’s bathing facilities, if they could be called that, were little more than a small chamber with a tin bath placed neatly in the centre. There was scarcely room enough for one person, assuming they were actually in the bath itself, and Kahlan knew even as she hesitated uneasily outside the door, that she would be hard-pushed to fit herself in there as well without (at the very least) invading Cara’s modesty.

Assuming, of course, that Cara knew the meaning of the word.

The door was closed, but not locked; Kahlan hadn’t seen a single door in the entire building that had a lock, and she supposed she should have been offended by the lack of privacy, but at that moment she couldn’t be anything other than grateful for the knowledge that she wouldn’t have to fight an impossible verbal war with Cara to be allowed access through the half-rotted door. She had every intention of knocking anyway, of course, being more than an advocate of privacy in the first place, but she knew that she wouldn’t have to accept Cara’s inevitable dismissal, and (given the Mord-Sith’s less than healthy frame of mind right then) that was reassuring.

“Cara?” she called, feeling all the more uneasy for knowing of just how unwelcome she would be, even as she cast that discomfort aside and rapped her knuckles lightly on the hard surface. “Can I come in?”

At first, there was no response. Kahlan didn’t need to see into the chamber to know that Cara was tossing her head back in frustration, willing her away, uttering silent (and, knowing Cara, curse-ridden) prayers that she just be left in peace for five pitiful minutes. The mental image was so typically Cara, so perfectly attuned to the woman Kahlan believed she knew, that it almost chased away the phantom memories of what they’d been through. _Almost_.

“Go away,” Cara grumbled eventually, and Kahlan smiled at the predictability of it. “I’m bathing, in case that isn’t readily apparent, and I don’t wish for company.”

Though she was more amused than annoyed by Cara’s announcement, Kahlan heaved a dramatic sigh, making sure it was loud enough for the Mord-Sith to hear through the door, and knocked again.

“I’m sure you don’t,” she said, “but we both know that doesn’t change anything.”

“Kahlan,” Cara growled, and Kahlan pictured her clenching her jaw in aggravation. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave. This instant.”

Chuckling low in her throat (low enough to make sure the sound wouldn’t be heard, lest Cara leap from the bath and decapitate her for being so disrespectful), Kahlan gave the door a gentle shove.

“When have either of us ever known what’s good for us?” she asked, stepping lazily into the too-small room and smiling at the look of resignation on Cara’s face.

As soon as the Confessor was fully in the room, closing the door gently behind her, Cara rolled her eyes and huffed the most long-suffering sigh Kahlan had ever heard in her life. She lay in the bath, submerged right up to her shoulders, and her wet hair cascaded like a dark blonde waterfall down over the back of the bath. In another time and another place, another world and to another Kahlan, she would have been beautiful.

“It’s a good thing your life is not worth the effort of getting up,” Cara muttered, ever deadpan and oblivious to her companion’s thoughts, “or you would find yourself facing the Keeper right now.”

Kahlan smiled in spite of herself. “In that case,” she replied, matching Cara’s tone as well as she could, “I’m glad I mean so little to you.”

Apparently having lost interest in the conversation, Cara merely grunted something calculately insulting under her breath, and closed her eyes. She was obviously hoping that, if she could only ignore Kahlan for a minute or two, the Mother Confessor would get bored and leave her to her precious bath; of course, Kahlan knew her well enough to know that she didn’t truly believe there was the least chance of that happening, but, being Cara, she had to try nonetheless. And Kahlan, being Kahlan, allowed her a moment or two of suspended disbelief, and kept quiet for just as long as it took for Cara to give up, cracking one eye open with a scowl.

“You’re still here.”

“I am,” Kahlan confirmed with an ironic chuckle. “You can ignore me if you want, but I’m not going anywhere.” Cara growled like a caged animal, but Kahlan ignored her. “I’m sure you’re perfectly capable of taking care of yourself, Cara, but there’s no sense in taking chances so soon after a spell like that. And anyway,” she went on after a beat or two, the words coming as an awkward afterthought even as she felt them through to her heart, “I missed you.”

Both of Cara’s eyes snapped wide open then, and the look on her face was almost laughable; she couldn’t seem to decide between surprise, amusement, and aggravation, and seemed to be stuck in a place just south of confused. On anyone else, it would’ve been entertaining enough, but on Cara, it was doubly so.

“You were with me for four days,” she reminded Kahlan, voice low and guarded.

“I was,” Kahlan agreed lightly, “but _you_ weren’t with _me_.”

Cara snorted derisively. “I’d imagine that would have been a blessing.”

“You think too little of yourself,” Kahlan blurted out before she could stop herself, and immediately wanted to take the unintended compliment back.

“Kahlan,” Cara said sharply, and her eyes drifted closed again; her body stiffened, visibly even below the waterline, taut with effortful frustration. “Now is not the time for this.”

That was true enough, of course, but knowledge of the fact didn’t make it any easier for Kahlan to accept. Mumbling a wholly insincere apology, she allowed a too-tense silence to descend on the tiny room. It was thick and heavy, uncomfortable in a way that even Cara’s extended in-spell silences hadn’t been, and Kahlan almost found herself wondering if perhaps she really had been misguided in thinking she was doing the right thing by coming here.

Cara needed to be watched, that much was beyond question, but Zedd had (though she’d never admit it to his face) made a valid point when he’d tried to make her realise that she wasn’t the right person for the task. Still, she reasoned idly, better it be her and they both spend the time drowning in discomfort, than she allow Richard or Zedd in here with Cara’s too-naked body as the Mord-Sith attempted to clean four days’ worth of sweat and grime from herself. Kahlan may have been harbouring inappropriate feelings, but she had seen Cara without clothes before, where the men (at least, to her knowledge) had not.

For her part, though she was clearly aggravated by Kahlan’s continued existence, Cara seemed entirely unembarrassed by the fact that the Mother Confessor was watching her bathe; perhaps she would have been slightly more uneasy if she realised exactly how much Kahlan’s feelings had changed, though Kahlan rather doubted even that would have made much difference. Cara’s sense of modesty, she knew from repeated exposure, had been practically nonexistent long before the spell had granted Kahlan complete access to her more-than active Mord-Sith sex life. And now... well, she mused with a wry (albeit embarrassed) smile, now Cara had no secrets.

It wasn’t the situation that was making Cara uncomfortable, of that Kahlan was certain. It wasn’t that there was someone watching her bathe, and it wasn’t even that it was the Mother Confessor. It was the fact that it was _Kahlan_ , and she knew that the same uncomfortable tension would be stretching out between them if they were anywhere else, doing anything else, being anyone else.

It didn’t matter that Cara was naked and Kahlan was trying far harder than she should have to not look at her, or that the rising steam from the hot bath was making the Confessor feel far more flushed than she should have felt when confronted with the not-at-all unusual sight of her companion bathing. Neither of those things were of the least interest to Cara now, just as they had never been of any interest to her before. But the fact that it was _Kahlan_ who insisted on invading, not even her privacy, but her personal space... that Kahlan was here, trying to _talk_ to her, trying be a _friend_ to her? That, she knew, was the driving force behind the ever-increasing tension she could feel bubbling and bristling in the damp air between them.

And so, because it seemed like the best thing to do (though, in hindsight, Kahlan would have no idea what could possibly have possessed her to think so), she decided to fixate on the one thing in all the world that wasn’t making Cara uncomfortable right then.

“Do you...” she started, realising only after she’d broken the silence that her mouth was too dry. She paused, clearing her throat, then tried again. “Do you need some help?”

Cara looked at her like she’d just grown a second head.

“I beg your pardon?” she managed, one eyebrow raised.

Kahlan fought the urge to kick herself; this had been a worse idea than letting the silence endure, she decided as she fought a wave of embarrassment, but she couldn’t turn back now.

“Help,” she repeated, and sounded just a little too much like she was the one asking for it. “Do you... need any?”

For far longer than Kahlan would have liked, Cara just continued to stare at her. She deserved the humiliation of her companion’s disbelieving glare, she supposed, but it was still obscenely painful to stand through, and she was relieved beyond measure when Cara finally surrendered the moment and rolled her eyes.

“Believe it or not, Kahlan,” she said dryly, “I am perfectly capable of cleaning myself without dropping dead from the strain.” Her eyes flashed. “And I’m also capable of taking a bath without drowning myself.”

Now it was Kahlan’s turn to roll her eyes, rising to the bait like a fish.

“Believe it or not,” she retorted, a deliberate echo of Cara’s own words, “it’s possible to accept help despite being capable. Sometimes it’s just nice to have things made a bit easier.”

Cara growled, and, though it was soft, there was something more than dangerous in the sound; had she not been as far away from the bath as the tiny room allowed, Kahlan would have taken a nervous step back, just to be safe.

“Kahlan,” Cara snapped, and all of the prior bemusement was gone from her voice as if it had never been there in the first place. “I do not wish for things to be ‘easier’.”

It was such a typically Mord-Sith response that Kahlan almost threw her hands up in despair. Instead, she simply huffed a melodramatic sigh, figuring that, if Cara was going to be petulant about this, she might as well communicate in a language she knew the other woman would understand.

“Why must everything be about pain?” she demanded, keeping her voice even despite the frustration pounding heavily through her. “Look at yourself, Cara – every inch of you is practically begging for a moment’s relief. Even just a _moment_. Why can’t you stop being so stubborn for five seconds and listen to your body? Why can’t you even give yourself that?”

Cara looked tortured, almost physically wounded, and Kahlan’s anger dissolved like sugar in the rain at the sight of her.

“Because,” she replied, softer than a whisper, “I don’t deserve it.”

There was so much conviction, such raw honesty in the admission that it almost left Kahlan breathless. Almost, and it would have done so entirely if she hadn’t been so resolved not to let Cara fall back on her characteristic self-loathing after so many months of growth (to say nothing of the last four days’ worth of torment on both their parts). Instead, she steeled herself, refuse to submit to the broken shell of self-loathing in Cara’s eyes.

“What makes you say that?” she asked; she’d intended the question to sound unassuming, casual, but it came out as a warning.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Cara said, very quietly. “I just wish to bathe in peace. I just wish to be left alone. I don’t want to talk to you about this, or about anything. Kahlan, why can’t you—”

“Would you talk to Richard?” Kahlan demanded, hating herself for how bitter she sounded. “Or Zedd?”

Cara said nothing.

“Is it just me?” Kahlan went on, her passion fuelled by the other woman’s silence. “Because I’ve done everything for you, Cara. I’ve seen everything, I’ve been through it all. I was right there with you for the whole thing – all of it, just like you asked me to be – and now it’s not enough for you?” She willed herself to calm down, but what meagre corner of herself was still rational was hiding from the part of her that wanted to scream. “What would you have me do?” she shouted. “Pretend I didn’t see it all? Pretend I didn’t see everything you went through? Do what Zedd say and watch you destroy yourself while you ‘process’?”

Zedd was right, she realised as the torrent of words slammed to a staggering stop. This had been a mistake. She should never have tried to confront Cara so soon after the ordeal. She hated when Zedd was right.

“Kahlan,” Cara whispered, sounding more exhausted by the Confessor’s diatribe than angered by it. “Your emotions are wasted on me.”

“That’s not your decision to make!” Kahlan snapped.

“No,” Cara conceded. “But it is the truth.”

She sounded too tired, too weary, and every fibre of Kahlan’s being screamed at her to insist the other woman slow down, stop talking, rest. But she couldn’t, and not just because she was curious. Her outburst seemed to have rendered her unable to say anything more, and all she could do was stand and stare as Cara glared at her through eyes lidded with pain and lingering trauma.

“Kahlan, I can’t be your...” She closed her eyes, and suddenly she was breathing too hard, unable to finish. “I can’t.”

“What changed?” Kahlan asked, nearly pleading.

Cara tightened her jaw until it went white, and Kahlan couldn’t help noticing just how small she looked just then, curled up in a bath that wasn’t particularly large but which still managed to make her almost seem to disappear, submerged in hot water but somehow still shivering. She was naked and exposed, literally and figuratively, to the elements and to the piercing blue of Kahlan’s gaze as she tried to read her. She looked so lost, so small. So broken.

Despite herself, Kahlan let her eyes wander south. It was too much suffering to watch the anguish on Cara’s face as she fought for just enough strength to answer the question, and it was more suffering even than that to know it was her fault that Cara had to seek out such strength in the first place. She hated herself for that, hated that she hadn’t had the patience to do as Zedd had told her to, that she’d been so intent, so desperate to talk that she had pushed Cara too hard and too fast. She hated herself for it, and yet she knew beyond all doubt that she would have made exactly the same decision a thousand times over, without deviation. She could no more have brought herself to wait, than Cara could bring herself to be strong now after so much.

And so, instead of allowing herself to drink in the pain she’d caused, she studied the water instead, trying not to let her eyes caress too much the less-than subtle curves of Cara’s body where it was distorted by ripples and reflections.

A single drop of blood, crystalline and pure, broke the near-perfect surface of the water. Then another. A third, and Kahlan’s gaze snapped back up to Cara’s face, real fear seizing her heart at the crimson track carving a path from the Mord-Sith’s nose.

“You’re bleeding,” she breathed.

As if in a daze, Cara cracked her eyes open; looking confused but not particularly concerned (not that Kahlan would have expected her to be), she blinked dizzily and brought up a hand to scrub at her face. She caught the fourth drop of blood on the back of her hand, more by luck than judgement, as it fell, and the terror that gripped Kahlan escalated at the sight of it until she could hardly breathe at all through the rising panic.

“You’re bleeding,” she said again, urgently.

“So I am,” Cara acknowledged, sounding more curious than anything else.

Still unfocused, she studied the bead of moisture resting on her hand (looking very much as though she’d never seen her own blood before), then casually licked it off.

“Cara!”

Another dark droplet slid down to replace it, and then another, until it was a steadily-trickling stream of crimson.

“It appears,” Cara said, sounding distant and strained, “that you were right.”

She squeezed her eyes into a half-squint, as if she was fighting to suppress a beast of a headache (which, Kahlan reasoned, remembering Zedd’s words, she probably was), and Kahlan was unable to tear her gaze away as Cara’s chest rose out of the water with the gradual increase in her rate of breathing.

“You may gloat, if you wish,” Cara went on, looking a little nauseous as she swiped irritably at the stream of blood. “Clearly, you know my body’s needs better than I do.”

“Do you want me to get Zedd?” It was the only thing Kahlan could think of. “I could have him here in no time. He’ll know what to do.”

“And listen to another of his lectures on the importance of rest while he fails to keep his eyes on my face?” Cara snorted. “I don’t think so. A cloth will suffice.”

Half-blind with worry, Kahlan grabbed at the nearest item she could find, a towel-like article that didn’t look particularly clean, but would certainly do the job required of it. She crossed without thinking to kneel beside the bath, handing it over to Cara with trembling hands; Cara grunted her appreciation, and held the fabric (a little too roughly, Kahlan couldn’t help thinking) to her nose, applying pressure.

“Cara,” Kahlan fretted, unable to help herself. “This isn’t normal.”

Through the towelling pressed against her face, Cara issued a wet-sounding laugh. “How do you know?” she demanded.

It was a good question, though that did little to assuage the pounding fear that still threatened to cut off Kahlan’s air supply. She wanted to insist, to point out that bleeding was always a cause for concern, but the truth was that she didn’t truly know. The trickle of blood and the apparent headache notwithstanding, Cara didn’t seem any less healthy than she had done a few moments earlier when she’d been well enough to offer sardonic retorts to having her privacy invaded. Quite the opposite, in fact; if she were honest, Kahlan would almost have said that the sudden presence of blood (comforting in its familiarity, she supposed) had given Cara a new surge of energy. She seemed almost excited by the sight of it.

“It can’t be,” she said at last, in answer to the question. “These things are never normal, especially not after...” She exhaled tightly. “...what you went through. Cara, I—”

“—don’t need to do anything,” Cara interrupted swiftly. “I appreciate your concern, Kahlan, but I’m fine. A bleeding nose is no cause for concern. It’s a common ailment... and all the more so after magic.”

“How do _you_ know?” Kahlan couldn’t help asking, feeling a thrill of satisfaction at the way Cara scowled. “You don’t know any more about this spell than I do.”

“I know how I’m feeling,” Cara shot back pointedly.

“And I know how often you leave out convenient details about that,” Kahlan replied, matching her tone flawlessly. “Because it’s ‘weakness’.”

Cara lurched to her feet, exposing herself completely.

“Turn around and leave,” she snarled, and her eyes were so dark with rage that Kahlan completely forgot she was naked beneath them. “Leave this room, and leave me. Leave, Kahlan, before I’m not the only one of us who’s bleeding.”

Transfixed, all Kahlan could do was stare.

In truth, she supposed she deserved the way Cara reared up. The Mord-Sith was fast, drawing back one arm in such a way that made it readily apparent she would have no qualms snapping it out in a brutal backhand if Kahlan didn’t pull herself out of range swiftly enough. Taking the hint (albeit with more reluctance than she’d ever admit), Kahlan followed the unissued command, and took two long steps backwards; she would have taken a third, too, to be safe, but her back struck the wooden surface of the door after the second, cutting off any further retreat.

“You may be the Midlands’ authority on weakness, Kahlan,” Cara barked, a cutting insult designed to inflict pain, “but do not pretend that makes you some kind of expert in the Mord-Sith definition of the word... or _mine_. Leave. Now.”

Though every rational corner of her screamed to acquiesce, Kahlan stood her ground.

“I’m not leaving you alone,” she insisted doggedly. “You’re bleeding, Cara, and you’re exhausted. As soon as I leave, you’ll collapse.” Cara snarled, and that was all the evidence Kahlan needed of the truth in her words. Emboldened, she went on, “You just don’t want anyone to be there when it happens. Because—” And this time, she chose the word deliberately, as intentional as Cara’s own malicious jibe had been. “—because you think it’s _weakness_.”

Cara lunged at her then, and it was a mark of how truly exhausted she was that her usual impeccable dexterity was marred this time by what was dangerously close to a stumble. She almost tripped over the rim of the bathtub in her haste to clamber out of it, catching herself just a moment before her shin caught the edge, and the way she landed on the slippery floor was as close to awkward as Kahlan had ever seen in her. Naturally, though, she didn’t let it slow her down, and Kahlan suddenly found herself pinned to the door as Cara drove her forearm hard against her throat; she was a woman possessed, slamming Kahlan up against the door with force enough to bruise, as though she was genuinely hoping to send her through it with her bare hands.

“It’s not weakness!”

Kahlan choked, the dual effects of Cara’s fervour and her forearm serving to cut off her air supply quite efficiently. “Then what...” she spluttered, “... _is_ it, Cara?”

Cara’s eyes closed, and Kahlan felt the muscles in her arm trembling violently where she held her in place. “Penance.”

She wavered, the scrap of bloodied towelling falling unnoticed from her hand as her knees buckled, and Kahlan reached out reflexively to steady her. Cara’s nose was still bleeding, but the flow of it had slowed to just a few easily-ignored droplets, and Kahlan turned her attention instead to the way that Cara’s eyes were again losing their focus. Collapse, it seemed, really was imminent.

Wanting to help, Kahlan tried to ease them both down to the floor before it happened, but Cara’s body went rigid with resistance.

“Do you know...” she demanded, spitting the words out as though they were pure poison and holding herself as close to upright as she was able, “...what he did to break me?”

Kahlan blinked. “Cara, what does that—”

“Shut up!” Cara roared, and Kahlan was so startled by the force of it that she actually did.

When she was certain that there wouldn’t be any further interruption (even as Kahlan’s every instinct still pleaded with her to run and fetch Zedd and damn the inevitable protests), Cara stepped back, inching her way back towards to the bath and turning away from Kahlan to gaze pensively into the sloshing water. Though she wanted more than anything the chance to see Cara’s face when she gave her explanation (the other woman’s other assets long forgotten to all but the most rebellious corners of her psyche by this point), Kahlan respectfully kept her distance.

“Everything,” Cara told her after what seemed like an eternity.

Kahlan didn’t say anything, simply waited in patient silence for her to go on at her own pace. It took a few long moments of effortful breathing and casually massaging her temples, but finally Cara seemed to summon strength enough to keep going, to tell Kahlan what she had so clearly wanted to tell Zedd earlier.

“Everything,” she repeated, shoulders heaving like she’d just run the entire length of the Midlands twice over. “All the suffering felt by everyone I’d ever tortured or killed. Everything I’d ever inflicted. _Everything_ , Kahlan, and all at the same time.” Kahlan felt her jaw drop open at the revelation, but she couldn’t utter more than a strangled whimper of sympathetic pain. “You can’t conceive it. You can’t imagine how much... how much pain...”

Sick with horror, Kahlan knew she was right.

“I’m sorry,” she choked out and had never meant anything more.

“You’re sorry?” Cara blurted out, finally turning to face her, and the depth of indefinable emotion quivering through her almost drove Kahlan to her knees. “ _Sorry_?”

“I don’t know what else I can say...”

“Kahlan,” Cara said, sounding surprisingly patient, even as every inch of her was still shaking like a leaf in a heavy breeze. “Did you fail to hear me?”

Wordlessly, Kahlan shook her head.

“All of the suffering,” Cara repeated, and her voice cut like a sunbeam through the steam-thick air, “I ever inflicted.”

Kahlan’s mind had stopped working. She could hear the words, could feel the weight of gravity bearing down on Cara’s voice, but simply could not comprehend what Cara was trying to tell her. Nothing made sense. Not the way Cara sounded like she was about to break in half at even just the slightest touch, not the way she was looking at Kahlan like she wanted to fall to her knees and beg for forgiveness, not the furious way she slashed at the lingering traces of blood as though they were buzzing flies around her head. None of it.

“You don’t understand,” Cara said, voicing aloud Kahlan’s own thoughts.

She sounded almost disappointed; Kahlan could tell she hadn’t wanted to dwell on it enough to have to break it down for an explanation, had hoped (perhaps even expected) that Kahlan, of all people, would understand, would know without having to be told. Kahlan wished that she could; she wanted nothing more than to simply _know_ , as Cara seemed so desperate for her to... but she didn’t, and she hated herself for forcing her tormented companion to keep going.

“Kahlan,” she forced out eventually, the word sounding like torture. “What he did to me... what he did to break me... it was nothing more than what I did to others. All of it.” Once again, she closed her eyes, and Kahlan could tell it wasn’t because she needed a moment, but because she wanted to hide the haze of tears glimmering behind them. “So much pain, Kahlan. Such unimaginable, unfathomable pain... and every last moment of it was something I’d already done to someone else.”

Her chest heaved with exertion and pain, and Kahlan watched helplessly as another stream of blood fell from her nose to colour the bare flesh there.

“Oh, Cara...” she breathed, the words coming before she could stop herself, and she fought with every ounce of strength she possessed to keep from launching herself across the room and pulling Cara into the Midlands’ most inappropriately intimate hug. “You’re not that person any more. You haven’t been for a very long time.”

“But I _was_ ,” Cara told her, sounding shattered. “And _I_ was, even more than _she_ was.” Her teeth were clenching again, and it was a couple of moments’ worth of jaw-breaking tension before Kahlan realised she was biting down hard on her tongue. “What I did... Kahlan, I’m a thousand times worse than she was. A hundred thousand times worse. She spared... she spared your sister all the suffering I put her through, all the hours of pain, all the torture... all the unspeakable things I did to her, just because she was a Confessor.”

“Cara—”

“And _still_ ,” Cara pressed on, unstoppable, “ _still_ , the pain was unfathomable. For all the mercy she was able to show that I wasn’t, for all the pain she spared her victims that I never did... still, it was unimaginable. Kahlan...”

Suddenly, her eyes were open wide as she stared across the room, as if the space between them was nothing. Kahlan had never seen such desperation in her eyes before (and she had seen plenty), begging, pleading, silently screaming for forgiveness. More than anything in the world, Kahlan wanted to grant her that, to lend her the peace it would offer... but it was no more hers to give than it was Cara’s to receive.

“How much more?” Cara whispered, barely audible. “How much more suffering would there have been if it had been me he was breaking, instead of her? How much more pain? How much _more_ , Kahlan?”

Not waiting for a response (looking rather like she was afraid of what it would be if she did), she whirled around again, and before Kahlan could even blink, she was submerged in the bath once more, scrubbing furiously at her face with fistfuls of slowly-cooling water. Politely, Kahlan kept her eyes averted, staring at the ceiling as she fumbled for something – anything – that she could possibly say.

She knew, even before she gave up the search for words, that they would never come. There was nothing she could say – nothing anybody could say – that would make this better, that could make Cara un-feel what she’d felt or un-know what she knew, and Kahlan’s heart was torn apart for her.

All Cara had wanted was to learn. How to feel, how to put those feelings into words, how to care about another soul without believing it to be weakness, how to be human for the first time in her life. What she had learned instead, vividly and inescapably and excruciatingly, was precisely how inhuman she had been for so much of her life.

There were no words, no paltry apologies or expressions of sympathy that could undo damage of that magnitude. There was no spell that could take away the memory of that pain, and there was nothing any of them could have done to predict it. Not even Kahlan herself could have anticipated that Darken Rahl might have obtained the means or the soullessness to inflict it. It couldn’t have been avoided, and there was no preparing for it... but it still hurt, more and more with every shaking breath Cara took and every drop of blood that fell into the water.

“Kahlan.”

Lost in thought as she was, it took a moment before Kahlan realised that Cara had in fact called her name, and she tore her gaze from the ceiling and blinked in silent confusion at her companion. Cara had one eyebrow raised and, had she not been in the bath, Kahlan was sure she would have been jutting her hips out with trademark impatience. The ghost of almost-characteristic behaviour, small as it was, was a relief.

“Do you need something?” she asked, not realising until after the question had escaped just how hopeful it sounded.

Cara snorted.

“Of course not,” she grumbled, as though it was an insult even to suggest that she might. “If I did need anything, I’m more than capable of providing it for myself.” Kahlan opened her mouth to apologise for the slight, but Cara silenced her with a warning glare. “However, if _you_ desire it... you may wash my back.”

Despite herself, Kahlan couldn’t help chuckling. It was typically Cara, she mused, to make the point that she was providing Kahlan a service in allowing her the honour of helping. Of course, right then, Kahlan couldn’t deny that it really did feel like a privilege, and she fought to keep from lighting up at the offer.

“You’re so thoughtful,” she deadpanned instead, crossing the sticky room to kneel once more beside the bath, and gently picking up the washcloth Cara had been using.

Bracing herself on the rim of the tub, Cara leaned forwards to grant access, and Kahlan tried to ignore the way the muscles in her shoulders flinched in response to her touch. She tried to be soft, considerate, diligent, all the things a normal person would need after such trauma as Cara was reeling from... but (perhaps predictably) the gentler she was, the more distress it seemed to cause. In the end, Cara was shaking all over, her entire body wracked with irrepressible spasms; anxious, Kahlan tore the cloth away, forcing herself to draw back completely.

“Am I hurting you?” she asked, cursing herself for the stupidity of the question.

Cara didn’t turn around, but Kahlan couldn’t help noticing the way her knuckles went deathly white where they gripped the edge of the bath, or the tightness in her voice when she finally managed to speak.

“No.”

“You’re shaking,” Kahlan told her, as if she didn’t know, and Cara growled irritably. “Cara, if I’m hurting you, if you’re in pain—” 

“I said I’m not,” Cara snarled, and Kahlan could’ve sworn she sounded more frustrated than insulted. “Just get on with it, Kahlan.”

Reluctantly, but dutifully, Kahlan did as she was told. Cara’s trembling didn’t subside, and neither did the bone-damaging strength with which she still clung to the side of the tub; within a matter of moments, Kahlan (who had been so enthused mere seconds earlier to be allowed the opportunity to help) was feeling guilty and unhappy at every stroke of the wet cloth across Cara’s bare back.

After what seemed like a lifetime, during which Kahlan would have given anything for the courage to pull away in spite of Cara’s insistences that she was fine, the Mord-Sith finally lurched forwards, jerking her exposed skin out of Kahlan’s reach. Kahlan was fairly certain she’d never been more grateful for anything in her entire life.

“Thank you,” Cara mumbled, turning to snatch the cloth from Kahlan’s limp hand, chest taut and fully exposed. Kahlan averted her eyes, blushing in spite of herself. “You can go now.”

Kahlan opened her mouth to argue, but closed it quickly before Cara could do it for her. “All right,” she said instead.

Without another word, she retreated to the other side of the chamber once again, watching with some sorrowful combination of sadness and concern as Cara finally leaned back, head coming to rest against the back rim, and closed her eyes. She looked as though she was recovering from a deep wound, and, though Kahlan had truly wanted to believe her when she’d said there was no pain, it was difficult given how relieved she seemed to be (however carefully she tried to disguise it) now that it was all over.

She knew better than to try and broach the subject again, though, and simply stood quietly and stared at everything in the room that wasn’t Cara.

By the time Cara decided she’d soaked enough (and Kahlan couldn’t help wondering if perhaps some part of her was trying to see how long it would take to drown), her nose was bleeding again. Kahlan raised one hand to bring attention to the fact, but thought better than to mention it aloud; it was obvious from the irritation colouring Cara’s features that she was well aware of the fact, and that she didn’t want it acknowledged.

Ignoring the dripping blood as it stained the newly-cleaned skin of her collarbone, carving a path down towards the upper swell of her breast, she eased herself out of the bath, not wavering at all this time as she meandered with exaggerated laziness across the room, and Kahlan’s mouth went dry as the water cascaded like a waterfall off her body.

“You—” Kahlan began, but cut herself off before she could finish; Cara did not need to know what she was thinking.

“I’m bleeding,” Cara growled. “I know that, Kahlan. You don’t need to point out the blindingly obvious all the time.”

“I wasn’t going to say that,” Kahlan blurted out, and instantly wished she could take it back.

Cara’s eyebrows lifted, and Kahlan could tell that the admission had genuinely caught her by surprise. “Then what?”

Kahlan chewed her tongue, trying to keep herself from staring too intently at Cara, as if looking elsewhere would somehow be enough to drive the thoughts from her mind. As if – by some miracle – Cara would lose interest in what she’d been about to say if she could just keep her mouth shut for a little while. As if (and this so much more than any of the others) Cara would finally realise where she was and what she wasn’t wearing, and dress herself.

She didn’t, of course.

“What?” she demanded instead, sounding impatient.

Kahlan’s heart dropped like a stone at the realisation that she wouldn’t be able to get away with this. And so, in a rush, hanging her head and staring pointedly at the floor, she blurted out in a single fast breath—

“...you look beautiful.”

Cara’s breath caught in her throat, and she made a sound that would’ve been a choke if there had been anything for her to choke on. 

“That’s what I was going to say,” Kahlan finished, when her companion didn’t offer any immediate response. “Just that. You look so—”

“ _Don’t_.”

It was a plea... and, as such, it wielded so much more authority than even the most hardened command.

“I’m sorry,” Kahlan said sincerely. “But you’re not the monster you were when you did those things. You’re so much more than the person you were. And, whether you believe it or not, Cara, you _are_ beautiful.”

Cara shook her head, looking pale.

“The things I’ve done,” she said, “are more than me. However much I may have changed, Kahlan, my deeds are still my deeds. The pain I was made to feel at Rahl’s hands, the blood, the suffering of all those souls... they were _my_ doing. He was only able to hurt me at all because I’d inflicted that pain elsewhere. And there is no amount of regret, in this world or any other, that will make that untrue.”

“No, there isn’t,” Kahlan agreed, reaching out to squeeze Cara’s shoulder, and withdrawing instantly when the muscle went rigid beneath her hand. “But there was a time, Cara, when you wouldn’t have felt that regret at all. Don’t you see how big a step that is? You can’t undo what you’ve done... but you can learn from it.”

“All I’ve learned,” Cara told her sadly, “is how much suffering I’ve caused. It’s not a lesson I wish to learn again.”

Kahlan sighed. “Regret is a kind of punishment, too, Cara,” she observed. “You’ve been bearing the weight of your deeds for a long time now. Darken Rahl just shaped what you were already feeling into something physical... something he hoped would break you.”

“It would have,” Cara whispered.

She turned away then, distracting herself by picking up and fussing with her leathers. She was silent for just as long as it took to dress herself (much less time, Kahlan couldn’t help noting, than she would have expected, given how complicated Mord-Sith clothing was), and then turned back to face Kahlan with haunted eyes and a blessedly covered chest.

“I wish it had.”

Kahlan frowned.

“Broken me,” Cara elaborated. “I wish it had. I wish I was... I wish I hadn’t...” She groaned, deep and low in her throat. “I would sooner be broken than this.”

“Cara—”

“No,” Cara interrupted, rough and urgent. “Kahlan, I can’t breathe through the pain. I can’t think through it. It’s everywhere, and it’s inside me, and there’s nothing I can do to make it stop. But it’s not enough. I want it like it was, so much that it devours me. I want it to tear these feelings from me until there’s nothing left but the monster I was.” She closed her eyes, and Kahlan could see the headache pounding through her as if it were a living thing. “I want it to end me, Kahlan. I want it to rip me apart. I want... I want it to break me.”

Kahlan wanted to tell her that she didn’t truly mean any of that, that she was exhausted and drained and worn out by a spell that had affected her far more deeply than anyone could have foreseen (even Zedd, much as it pained her to admit), but she could tell that it wasn’t true. It was obvious by the raging intensity that blazed a trail across every inch of the Mord-Sith’s face, threatening to consume everything in its path even through her closed eyes, that she did mean it. Every word she’d said, and a great many more that she hadn’t said, as well. It broke her heart, and all the more so because there was nothing she could do to change it.

“I know this isn’t what you expected,” she said at last, hating how hollow the assurance was. “And I know it’s a lot to process...”

She loathed that word.

“I know,” Cara muttered, before Kahlan could recover herself and finish her thought. “You think I should rest. You think a good night’s sleep in that damn bed I’ve been in for four days will make everything so much simpler. You think I’ll wake up in the morning and realise that all I need is a good breakfast and a pitcher of ale, and I’ll be fine. I’ll forget everything, and all will be as it was.”

“No,” Kahlan replied. “I know it won’t be. Neither of us are foolish enough to believe that. But those last moments, Cara... they weren’t all you went through. They’re just the freshest in your mind. When you have a clearer head, maybe you’ll be able to remember the rest of it as well. The good parts. The parts you wanted to see, the parts where you _felt_. Cara, there’s so much more than what Rahl put you through. There’s so much more...”

Cara’s mouth opened, and it looked like she was going to make one of her usual cutting remarks; Kahlan braced for it almost willingly, desperate for any trace of the Cara she knew and not this agonised shell of her, but the intended insult (whatever it was) never came. Instead, Cara sighed with all the weariness of a thousand sleepless nights, and rested her forehead against the nearest wall.

“I did it for you,” she said at last, sounding as though the fact caused her more pain even than the memory of her torture. “I did it for you... Kahlan, I...”

“I know,” Kahlan whispered, feeling the truth of it down to her bones.

A few scattered heartbeats, and suddenly they were standing toe-to-toe. Cara was breathing hard enough for both of them, eyes wide and wild with pain and sorrow and terror and guilt, and a thousand other things besides, as she stared into Kahlan’s eyes. She wasn’t just praying for forgiveness this time, Kahlan realised; she was praying for confession.

“I wish you still hated me,” she whispered, more broken than Kahlan had ever seen her.

As she felt herself torn asunder once more by the depth of raw pain arcing like lightning through Cara’s eyes, by the trickle of blood that still dripped unacknowledged from her nose, by the rhythmic pounding in her head (so loud that Kahlan could hear it echoing within her own), by all the sorrow and suffering she had caused and endured and inflicted and withstood... as she felt herself drowning in the agony of a friend who had come to mean everything to her... as she remembered how much easier it had been when all that she’d wanted was to kill this woman, this Mord-Sith, this soulless monster who had become so human, to see her die in unspeakable agony at her hands... 

...as all of those things washed over her, irrepressible and overwhelming and frightening beyond words, Kahlan wished it too.


	33. Chapter 33

It took far longer than Kahlan would have liked to get Cara back to their room. Cara, though obviously struggling just to remain upright, refused to accept even the most surreptitious offers of help, and kept having to stop and brace herself against the nearest solid surface. Kahlan, for her part, could only follow a few steps behind and pray that Cara’s stubbornness didn’t cause her any lasting damage; she knew well enough that, if she was foolish enough to close the space between them, she would find herself with an agiel to the chest, and so she didn’t try.

Zedd and Richard were still in the room when they returned; Kahlan wasn’t sure whether she’d expected them to still be there or to have disappeared, but she was wholly unprepared for the surge of relief that crashed down over her at the sight of their familiar faces.

She was, she realised, completely and utterly overwhelmed by the fear and the worry and the countless roiling emotions that had refused to leave her alone; the sight of Zedd sitting on the bed, chewing an indefinable slice of fruit and discussing the weather with Richard filled her with such inexplicable gratitude that it almost knocked her feet out from under her. She had wanted nothing more than to be alone with Cara, and yet somehow she found herself drawing strength from Richard’s familiar warmth and Zedd’s quiet wisdom.

It wouldn’t last, she was sure, but while it did, she intended to take comfort in it.

“You’re back,” Richard said, ever one for stating the obvious.

Zedd glanced up, wisely deciding to finish his mouthful of fruit before he dared open his mouth to speak.

“How was your bath?” he asked Cara, eyes shadowed and voice too casual to be genuine.

“It was pleasant,” Cara replied, and Kahlan winced at the lie.

“Zedd,” Kahlan said, without preamble, ignoring the warning glare she felt Cara turn on her. “Cara’s been bleeding.”

“It’s nothing,” Cara insisted. “Just a couple of nosebleeds.”

Zedd looked from one to the other and back again, concern mingling with carefully-concealed bemusement.

“It’s not unusual,” he admitted, eyes locking on Kahlan for as long as it took to make sure she believed him, before turning to fix with steady seriousness on Cara. “How’s your head?”

It looked for a moment as though Cara was going to try and dismiss the headaches as having all but disappeared; her eyes flashed with resolve for a second or two, before Kahlan told her with a single glance that she wouldn’t allow it. If need be, she decided (and made sure Cara knew it too), she would tell Zedd herself exactly how far from vanished the headaches truly were, and she would not be nearly so lenient with the details. And so, surrendering with a well-placed scowl, Cara massaged her temples and heaved a strained sigh.

“It’s not comfortable,” she admitted, the closest to a confession of real discomfort that she would probably ever get. “But I’ll survive. Do not concern yourself.”

“I wasn’t,” Zedd told her, and Kahlan could tell it was more for the benefit of Cara’s pride than it was an expression of honesty. “I know perfectly well how hard your head is.”

Though she knew he was simply trying to speak to Cara on her level, to make her more comfortable in a situation so far out of her comfort zone, Kahlan couldn’t help feeling a little irritated by Zedd’s standoffishness. She supposed she should have been grateful for it (as inept as the wizard could be, he was nothing if not reliable in the moments that mattered), but all she could think of was how terrified she had been when she spotted those first drops of trickling blood, and how worried she still was now. And Zedd, for all his wisdom in how to deal with a moody Cara, was not offering anything close to the reassurance Kahlan needed.

All she wanted was for him to tell them both that everything would work itself out, and that Cara would be back to herself in no time at all... to speak the words, instead of dancing around them with carefully-placed irony and supposedly witty remarks; of course, she knew that it would be irresponsible of him to make promises that couldn’t be kept with any kind of certainty, that he was refusing (and rightly so) to offer hollow and invalid reassurances, but she wished for them even so, and with all her heart. Zedd was the one who calmed them, the one who gave them courage and strength and reassurance when they had none. Why couldn’t he see how desperately Kahlan needed those things now?

Richard, of course, was looking at Kahlan as if he could read all those qualms in her, and the pained expression on his face told her that he would have happily offered her every one of the things she needed if he could, but he knew just as well as she did that there was nothing he could do for either of them; it needed to come from Zedd, because he was the one who knew. Richard, for all his charm, was as ignorant as Kahlan herself. It was breaking his heart, she could see, to watch her worry so much about anyone, and especially about Cara, and she longed to go to him and thank him for everything he’d done for her (even without truly doing anything at all), but she simply couldn’t move.

“The headaches should pass in time,” Zedd was saying, and cut Cara off with a wave of one hand as she opened her mouth to tell him that she knew that; it was, Kahlan could tell, the closest to a true reassurance he was capable of offering. “And the bleeding as well. Provided you _rest_.”

“You people,” Cara grumbled, angry and unhappy at the same time. “You think every ailment in the world can be cured by a good meal and a good night’s sleep. You should know better than anyone, wizard, that the world is not so simple a place. I don’t need a good night’s sleep any more than you need another good meal.”

“Perhaps not,” Zedd conceded, apparently knowing better to argue with her (even when it was he who was right). “But we’re not going anywhere for another day or two, so is there really any harm in taking advantage of the comfortable quarters, whether you need them or not?”

Cara growled, though it was less murderous than usual. “I’m tired of these ‘comfortable’ quarters. I have been stuck here for four days.” She balled her fists at her sides. “It’s enough, wizard. It’s more than enough.”

“You weren’t even aware of your surroundings,” Kahlan reminded her, and expected to be struck dead for daring to say it.

Instead, to her surprise, Cara merely studied her wordlessly for a few long moments, before submitting with a weary sigh. It was as though all the fight had been driven out of her by an exhaustion she would deny to her grave, and Kahlan honestly wasn’t sure whether to be relieved by the change in her, or even more worried by how unlike Cara it was.

“We should leave you in peace,” Richard offered quietly, looking a little conflicted; part of him, Kahlan knew, wanted to be by her side to offer what meagre comfort he could, while the rest of him was painfully aware of the fact that his presence would just be getting in the way. “I’m sure Zedd’s hungry, anyway.”

Zedd gave a good-naturedly indignant splutter. “You act like there’s nothing more to me than the state of my belly!”

“Isn’t there?” Cara demanded, venting some small part of her frustration on the hapless wizard, while, at the same time, somehow managing to express something that might almost have been gratitude for his not having treated her like a porcelain doll.

Accepting the remark for what it were, Zedd shrugged.

“Perhaps not,” he said, as if he was genuinely considering the weight of the argument, then turned to Richard with an enthusiastic cheerfulness that Kahlan knew was entirely fabricated. “Come along, then, my boy.”

The twinge of unease that plucked at Kahlan’s heartstrings as the two men left was as unexpected as it was unwanted.

Part of her (and she couldn’t determine whether it was the rational part or the part that was afraid) ached to keep Zedd in the room for as long as Cara was still in such a precarious state; she longed for the security in knowing that, if the Mord-Sith’s condition worsened, he was on hand to medicate. More, she wanted to keep his presence there as a reminder that all of Cara’s pain was his fault. She wanted to draw courage from his guilt, to watch Cara draw the same, to see her take everything the wizard had to offer until she was every inch the Cara they all knew so well, and not this shattered shell of existence that was so damaged and so unable to hide it.

It was the same part of her, she realised, that longed for Richard’s presence too, even as Cara was all she could think of. She wanted Richard there, just as she wanted Zedd there, to support her. Kahlan was a strong, powerful woman; she had never needed men, least of all men as simple-minded as Zedd or as sweetly innocent as Richard to protect her, or to hold her hand even during times as trying as this. She was more capable than both of them combined, and yet there was something about Cara’s condition that rendered her so mindless with terror that she would have taken every ounce of solace they could offer, and never stopped to think about the fragility in accepting it.

When she looked at Cara, she felt like a child. Helpless, confused, frightened. She ached for someone who knew the world better than she did, who could take her into their arms and make her believe that she could do this, that she could be what Cara needed, even if it wasn’t true. There was no weakness in needing help sometimes, Kahlan knew (even if Cara hadn’t quite figured that out yet), and she refused to be ashamed of missing the supportive warmth of Richard and Zedd now that they were gone. Besides, it would be a waste of resources that she didn’t have, and all for the sake of her own ego.

“You can—” Cara started, oblivious to her inner thoughts, and Kahlan was glad of the interruption, and grateful for the fact that she knew what was coming next.

“ _You_ can take the bed,” she interrupted smoothly, with a smile that she knew wouldn’t touch her eyes. “I’ll be fine on the floor, Cara. And you’ve spent too much of the last four days there, anyway.”

Cara narrowed her eyes, looking very much like she was trying to calculate precisely how much of Kahlan’s offer was borne of practicality and how much was intended as undesired charity. Had she not been so worried about her, Kahlan would have laughed at the effortful concentration on her face (and the way she could practically see the wheels in Cara’s head turning), but the fact that the Mord-Sith was allowing her expression to show so much strain for such a pointless conflict was just another notch in the bedpost of her worry. It wasn’t like Cara to be so free in admitting she was finding something difficult to grasp, and especially something as small as this.

“Just take the bed,” Kahlan heard herself repeat when Cara didn’t say anything for a few moments, and she carefully exaggerated the weariness already in her voice. “I’m too tired to argue with you.”

It wasn’t strictly true (though it was getting there), but it gave Cara a platform from which to let her innate pride believe it was only conceding out of acquiescence to Kahlan’s needs, and not through any need of her own.

Settling down a couple of feet away from the bed, Kahlan watched as Cara grudgingly stripped herself of her gloves and belt; there was no ignoring the almost affectionate way she patted the handles of her agiels as she placed the belt on the floor beside the bed, and Kahlan almost smiled at the small gesture. It shouldn’t have been endearing, she knew, given that she knew it was the pain of the weapons Cara was embracing far more than their familiarity, but seeing Cara express unguarded and honest appreciation for anything was so rare that she couldn’t quite bring herself to care about the darkness in it.

Making herself as comfortable as she could on the unyielding floor, Kahlan watched as Cara tried to do the same on the bed; she’d hoped that some of the tension in the Mord-Sith’s posture would disappear when she realised how comfortable the bed was (or at least how warm in comparison to the chilly floor), but it didn’t. Quite the opposite, in fact – it seemed that, the more effort Cara put into trying to relax, the less she managed to. It was frustrating, but shouldn’t have been unexpected.

For a long moment, Kahlan was conflicted; part of her wanted to try and do something, anything, that might help to ease Cara into a state of near-slumber, while the rest was afraid that any efforts on her part would be met with so much resistance that they’d end up causing more harm than good. And yet, she couldn’t bear the rustling, the irate grumbling and the barely-repressed whimpers as Cara’s headache pulsed or the phantom pain tugged at her from all angles.

She had to do something, she thought determinedly, whether it would be appreciated or not. She couldn’t sit in silence and endure Cara’s discomfort without even trying to ease it. And so, without even really stopping to think about it, she began to hum.

The tune wasn’t anything in particular, and it certainly wasn’t specifically intended as a lullaby (at least, not to Kahlan’s knowledge), but the soothing note of gentle calm that threaded through the mostly-random notes was inescapable, and Kahlan felt her own eyelids growing heavy almost before she realised that Cara’s annoyed tossing and turning was also becoming a little more arrhythmic. With each new swell in the melody, Cara’s shifting became less frequent, until it became almost contented.

She knew, of course, that Cara would deny ever having been soothed by something so pathetic as a tuneless song hummed by a Confessor, but that didn’t matter. Whatever Cara would say about it, Kahlan would know the truth, and she would relish peaceful contentment that bubbled in her chest at having been able to help, even just in this.

It was not unlike a thrill of euphoria, the sensation that trickled like fresh spring water through Kahlan’s veins as an unguarded, beautifully soft sigh escaped Cara, seemingly without her even realising it had happened; still humming, she allowed her eyes to drift closed, and she relished the way the slowly-stilling backbeat of Cara’s shifting guided the rhythm of the song. Filling the space between their bodies, the two sounds wrapped around each other like flags in a soft breeze, lifting and swelling to form a hymn that washed in blissful waves over them both.

Neither of them would know who fell asleep first.

Kahlan had no idea how long she slept for, or whether she dreamed at all; she only knew that her thoughts were filled with Cara in the moments before she surrendered, and that the Mord-Sith was still the only thing she could think of when she awoke to the sound of screaming.

The noise powered through her, driving away the haze of groggy half-consciousness that would have been pleasant (if it had been possible) to indulge in after so many days of exhaustion, and slamming into her chest with all the force of a physical blow. She didn’t need to look across the room to know that the screams were coming from Cara, and she didn’t need Zedd’s wizardly insights to know exactly what had brought them back to the surface.

“Cara...” she mumbled, voice still thick with residual grogginess as she lurched to her feet and stumbled blindly over to the bed.

Unsurprisingly (though no less worryingly for being that way), Cara’s only response was another gut-churning scream, and Kahlan felt her knees buckle as she fell across the bed. It was still far too small for such activity, but that didn’t stop her curling around Cara where she was tangled up in blankets and sheets, nor did it stop her wrapping her arms around the other woman in a desperate bid at calming her.

“Cara!” she repeated, the haze of sleepiness giving way to rough-edged anxiety as she pulled Cara into a semi-upright sitting position and took her face in her hands. “Cara, wake up. You’re dreaming.”

Beneath her, Cara flinched, and the screams gave way to little whimpering moans; though softer, they were still shot through with irrepressible distress, and that did little to assuage Kahlan’s fears. Once again, she realised, blood was streaming from her nose, this time in a relentless ruby river that tainted the pillows and the sheets and anything else within range. Acting on instinct, little heeding the damage, Kahlan pressed the corner of her sleeve to Cara’s face in a bid at stemming the flow, not even acknowledging the dark stain where it seeped hotly through the fabric to stain the skin beneath.

Cara moaned again, raw with soul-rending pain.

“I’m here,” Kahlan told her. “You’re safe, Cara. It’s a dream. It’s not real.”

When Cara’s eyelids finally fluttered open, Kahlan almost expected to find herself faced with the spell-induced whiteness that had been so characteristic of the unresponsive Cara she had been stuck with for four days. She’d spent so long having to remind herself that she was speaking to a ghost, the spectre of a woman who was trapped within her own mind, that it was suddenly alien to realise the woman in her arms was real. She was so accustomed, it seemed, to not having any influence, it actually struck her with real surprise when Cara’s eyes opened as clear and sea-hazed as they had ever been.

“Cara,” she breathed, willing her to hear the empathy in her voice, to know that she was safe and free from Rahl.

She didn’t really anticipate a response at all, much less for the still-semiconscious Cara to actually recognise her, so, when she heard her name choked off Cara’s lips, a thrill of shuddering relief surged through her.

Feeling her arms tighten reflexively around the woman in her arms, oblivious to the consequences of holding her so close after what was so clearly a traumatic dream, Kahlan hugged her; it was a real hug, honest and pure and true, the kind that was so filled with empathic pain and passion that it felt like it would cut off their air supplies by force of emotion alone.

Cara, for her part, whimpered again. It was soft and low and small, barely a sound at all, but it broke Kahlan’s heart nonetheless. She sounded like she was dying... or perhaps like she wished she was.

“Don’t—” she managed, choking on the word.

Kahlan leaned grudgingly back, only noticing as she rested her hands in her lap that the blood had seeped through the fabric of her sleeve where she’d pressed it against the free-flowing stream; the sticky substance was hot and bracing against the porcelain skin of her wrist, grounding her and reminding her just how serious the situation was.

“Cara,” she said, trying to ignore the blood on her wrist and the stream of it that was only just beginning to slow in its path from Cara’s nose down to the similarly-coloured leather at her chest. “Cara, you were just dreaming. That’s all. It was a dream, just a—”

“Kahlan,” Cara interrupted urgently, voice thick with blood and pain, eyes struggling to stay open. “I need one of my agiels. Now.”

At first, the request struck Kahlan as unusual, but the puzzlement faded almost as soon as she remembered that it was Cara she was speaking to. _Cara_ , who, more than any other Mord-Sith Kahlan had ever met (an admittedly limited number), used the tangible pain of her agiels to ground herself in reality, to remind her of who she was in those moments where she was so overwhelmed by indecipherable sensations that she couldn’t remember. It made sense, in a twisted sort of way that was fundamentally Cara, that she would need her agiels now more than ever, and Kahlan bent swiftly to retrieve one of the rods from where it lay discarded on the floor.

The pain that surged through her as her fingers closed around the weapon’s handle was white-hot and almost entirely unbearable, just as it always was. Though the touch of an agiel was certainly not new to her by now, Kahlan knew that she’d never be truly immune to the heart-stopping agony they caused with even the most fleeting of touches. She almost blacked out twice in just the few moments it took to pick up Cara’s agiel and deposit it on the bed between herself and the waiting Mord-Sith, and that was as nothing to the pain that she knew Cara was hoping to find in the weapon’s embrace.

She expected that Cara would lurch forwards and seize the weapon in both hands the moment it was within her reach, so desperate was her apparent need for it, but she didn’t. She didn’t move at all, in fact; she just sat there, eyes half-closed and body curling in on itself as she struggled to suppress the phantoms of dream torture, bare hands fisting at her hairline in a bid at quelling the headache Kahlan knew had to be coursing through her once again. She seemed so unaware of the agiel’s presence, Kahlan almost wondered if perhaps she had forgotten that she’d asked for it in the first place.

“Cara...” Kahlan offered at last, gesturing uneasily at the innocuous-looking rod.

Squeezing her eyes completely shut, Cara reached out; when her fingers closed, not around the rod, but around Kahlan’s wrist (the one still stained with blood beneath the ruined fabric of her sleeve), Kahlan naturally assumed she’d simply missed her intended destination. It took only a moment to realise her error though; the kiss of cool flesh, even damp with blood as Kahlan’s was, was a completely different sensation to the ice-hot burn of an agiel’s handle, and Cara would have to have been far more out of sorts than she was to not notice the difference in less than a second.

“Kahlan,” she said, tugging gently, and Kahlan knew with certainty that it hadn’t been a mistake at all. “Kahlan, I need you to—”

“No!” Kahlan heard herself blurt out before her companion could finish.

It was only after the word left her lips that her rational mind caught up with the rest of her and realised that, though she hadn’t given Cara a chance to even voice her request, she knew exactly what it was she wanted.

Cara didn’t want the agiel in her hands. She didn’t want, or need, the grounding sensation of its pain thrumming through her fingertips in the intoxicating way it did when she charged into battle with both her weapons drawn. She didn’t want to hold it, or to squeeze its familiar surface and relish the pain that was as much a part of who she was as the leathers she wore, or do any of the things Kahlan had seen her do countless times before.

She wanted it pressed to her flesh, heat and fire and blood-raising welts. She wanted the pain of torture, the wounds of breaking, the agony of training. She wanted the agiel in Kahlan’s hand, forced against her skin, driving into her until it was all she could feel and all she knew.

“Kahlan,” she managed, and the name was enough to voice every one of those desires, more clearly than a thousand words.

“I can’t...” Kahlan told her, not waiting for Cara to find strength enough to say more. “Cara, I can’t. You know I can’t.”

“Kahlan,” Cara repeated, a panting whimper, so childlike that it unravelled Kahlan’s heart. “I can’t think. I can’t sleep.” The grip she had on Kahlan’s wrist tightened. “I can’t breathe.”

Kahlan closed her eyes. It was all she could do to drive away the tears.

“All I have is pain,” Cara went on, a frightened little girl. “And you.”

“Cara,” Kahlan forced out, hoping that she could just keep Cara talking for long enough to return to her senses and cast aside the apparently irrepressible need to suffer. “Why me? If you need it so badly, why can’t you?”

Looking ever more vulnerable with each passing moment, Cara bit her lower lip until it was bleeding heavily enough to mingle with the lingering trail from her nose.

“What I need,” she said, speaking very slowly and evidently choosing her words with great care, “I cannot do to myself. I need you to... Kahlan, _I can’t sleep_. When I close my eyes, I remember it. Every moment, every breath, every ounce of pain.” She tensed, and Kahlan lifted her fingers to caress the back of Cara’s hand.

“It’s all right,” she said softly, though she knew that would offer little comfort to the hurt-stricken Mord-Sith. “It’s understandable. You’ve been through a lot.”

“That may be,” Cara said, nodding in acceptance; Kahlan could tell that she didn’t truly think the reaction was a thing of weakness, at least not just then, but that didn’t seem to make it any easier for her to endure. “But the wizard was right, Kahlan, though I will end you if you dare tell him I said so.”

From anyone else, the remark would have been an ice-breaker. From Cara, it was deadly serious.

“I won’t tell him,” Kahlan promised, smiling sadly.

Cara nodded. “He is right. I need to rest. I need to... my body is crying out for sleep, Kahlan. But I can’t. I _can’t_. I...”

For just a single fragile heartbeat, it looked almost as though she was about to cry. It was less than a moment, and then it was gone, but an imprint of it lingered in Kahlan’s mind’s eye, tattooed to her aching heart.

“And so, Kahlan,” Cara went on after a moment, swiping at the blood on her face with renewed fury as she composed herself, “I need you to do this for me. I need you to... to ensure that I am rendered unconscious.”

The plaintive simplicity of the request caused Kahlan’s heart to constrict almost beyond tolerance. Had Cara really been so frightened by her dreams that she’d willingly seek out dreamless unconsciousness in the agony-fuelled touch of an agiel? Was that truly the only possibly relief she could see from the ghostly revenant of a breaking that had never even happened? Part of Kahlan ached for her, while the rest of her was too busy trying to think of a less obscene alternative.

“I know you’re suffering, Cara...” she said at last, and wished that she could find something better to offer.

“I know you do,” Cara echoed wanly. “Why do you think I’m asking this of you, Kahlan? _You_. It’s not because Richard is too chivalrous, or because Zedd’s too squeamish, or because I... because I...”

She cut herself off, looking humiliated, but Kahlan knew what she would have said even without having heard it. _Because I trust you_. It caused another convulsion to rumble deep in her chest, but this one was almost warm.

“It’s because...” Cara pressed on, with an urgency that had nothing to do with casting aside the almost-uttered sentiment. “It’s because I know that you understand. It’s because I know that you – _you_ , Kahlan! – would do anything in the world to make this end.” She gestured at the agiel, looking utterly desperate. “You know I won’t beg. Not even you. But know also that I need this.”

Hesitant, miserable, Kahlan turned from Cara to the agiel. She could feel the thrumming buzz of its power even as it lay dormant on the bed, and could feel the phantom tingle of revenant pain in her fingertips where she’d held it; she didn’t want to hold it again, didn’t want to feel its lash on herself any more than she wanted to inflict the same on anybody else, least of all the woman in front of her.

Far more than that, though, she didn’t want to be an aide to what Cara believed she needed. She didn’t want to drive the other woman into an unhealthy unconsciousness borne of pain and fear and addictive agony; she wanted to rock and soothe her back to sleep as if she was a sick infant, and damn the protestations she knew would fall from Cara’s mouth at the indignity of it. She wanted to be sister and mother and friend and lover, and all at once, until Cara had no choice but to let her wounds be healed and cleaned. More than anything, she did not want to reinforce Cara’s twisted belief that pain could only be mended by more pain.

It was an unfair request to make, Kahlan thought, with no small amount of bitterness; she knew that Cara had to be aware of the fact, and that only made it sting more. She remembered too well the way Cara had been forced to use her agiel on Kahlan to close an infected wound some long months back; she recalled the sharp-edged darkness that had devoured her as the pain had taken hold, could taste in the back of her throat the searing flesh-charred air, the acid rising up as the pain took hold. She could feel the unconsciousness descending on her, as if it was happening again. All of it, she remembered as though it had just happened, and she knew Cara had to remember it too.

The pain had been excruciating, almost beyond her endurance, but Cara had been eager to inflict it. She’d known, Kahlan realised, that the momentary discomfort was nothing next to the risk of leaving the wound to fester more than it already had. Though she’d clearly been excited (almost physically, Kahlan recalled with a blush) by the prospect of inflicting such pain on a Confessor, Cara had done the deed because it was necessary... because the alternative was infinitely, immeasurably worse. Was this really like that?

As if reading her mind, Cara loosed a low groan, the kind that even Kahlan couldn’t argue with, and blindly released Kahlan’s wrist as she reached up to cradle her head in both hands.

“I will not beg,” she mumbled again, voice deep with helpless passion, and Kahlan could see that she was fighting to keep from screaming again. “But I need a kind of pain that can be controlled. I need the agiel. _My_ agiel, Kahlan, and _your_ hand. I will not beg, because I cannot. But know that, if I could, I would be begging you for this.”

Knowing too well that the standard agiel-inflicted pain would be only the tip of the suffering for them both, Kahlan surrendered. When Cara was looking at her like that, she couldn’t deny her anything. Not even this.

“All right,” she forced out through gritted teeth. “You win, Cara.”

The little unchecked moan of relief that escaped Cara’s lips simultaneously broke her heart and cemented her resolve to see this through, no matter how wrong it was. However much of Cara’s suffering was a nonexistent memory, it was still a torture in its own right, and she still needed release from it. She would never have come so close to begging (her reiterated inability to do so had practically been a plea in itself), had she not been desperate beyond words. Kahlan would have given anything for there to be another way, anything else that either of them could do to quell this, but Cara had made her mind up, and she would refuse to change it. Kahlan knew her far too well to expect anything less.

Setting her jaw, afraid, she reached for the agiel.

“If this continues,” she said, speaking very slowly and allowing the words and the thought behind them to steady her as she gripped the weapon’s handle and felt the searing pain carve a destructive path through her nerves. “If it doesn’t subside... we’re going to tell Zedd. That’s not a suggestion, and it’s not a discussion. He made this happen, and we’ll make him fix it.”

“I don’t want to be fixed,” Cara told her, a shadow of pain-etched resolve bleeding in her voice. “I want to be broken.”

“I can’t break you,” Kahlan said, feeling her fingers trembling around the agiel, and the tremor had nothing to do with the pain it was inflicting. “You have to come to terms with this yourself, Cara. You have to remember it and endure and go through it yourself, and you have to accept that it can’t be changed. Like a person, not a Mord-Sith. Not everything can be fixed by breaking.”

“I deserve it,” Cara told her.

“You deserve _peace_ ,” Kahlan replied, and took advantage of Cara’s shaken silence to press the agiel lightly against her abdomen.

Whatever it was that Cara wanted from this, they both knew her well enough to know that it wasn’t peace. It was, Kahlan suspected, punishment, though she knew Cara far too well to dare suggest it aloud. Cara was still dwelling on her part in the trauma she’d been forced to endure, the hurt she’d inflicted to incite the hurt she’d felt; she was aching (more even than her body ached for sleep, Kahlan knew) for someone to take her and hang her over a pit and force her once again to re-live the pain she felt she’d earned. As much as she needed the unconsciousness, it was the pain she wanted.

“Harder,” she breathed through gritted teeth, the word almost inaudible over the bloodthirsty scream of the agiel.

Kahlan’s arm shook as she obliged.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, refusing to let Cara treat this as penance; it was necessity, and she would not allow Cara to twist it into anything else. “I’m sorry, Cara. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I—”

“Don’t,” Cara growled, voice raw with pain and laced with anger. “Don’t apologise.”

“Don’t,” Kahlan echoed, “treat this as something you deserve.” She pressed marginally harder, feeling the power of the agiel thrumming through them both, and watched as Cara blanched. “I won’t let you believe this is your fault, Cara. You’re not to blame for what was done to you.”

Chalky white, Cara’s bare fists were clenching and unclenching at her sides, as though seeking out some solid surface to cling to.

“I am,” she managed, sickly.

“It was _not_ your fault,” Kahlan told her.

“I did it all,” Cara rasped.

“You did it because they made you.”

“I did it of my own free will.”

“You did it because it was all you knew.”

“Maybe,” Cara conceded. “But I still did it.”

“Cara.”

Not even aware of the fact that she was doing it, Kahlan realised she’d punctuated the name by once again increasing the pressure of the agiel where she pressed it to Cara’s stomach. The whimper that escaped Cara’s lips, unbidden and unheeded, was etched with something that sounded like relief.

“Cara,” Kahlan repeated, watching as Cara turned a shade paler. “You have to stop this. Just _stop_.”

There were tears in Cara’s eyes, then, and it was a mark of how completely the agiel was doing its job that she was unable to hide them.

“I can’t,” she groaned. “I can’t stop. I can’t un-feel what I feel now, any more than the wizard could have undone – for a third time – the damage he caused.” She reached up, fumbling blindly, and gripped Kahlan’s agiel-wielding hand in both of hers. “I asked for this, Kahlan. I asked to feel, to understand what feeling is. I asked for this... and it’s no less than I deserve.”

Kahlan tried to drop the agiel, but Cara wouldn’t let her. She was almost completely colourless now, all the blood in her body seemingly fixed on the point where the agiel howled against her belly, and yet she was still conscious. It looked almost as if she was holding herself above the blackening waves of oblivion solely through the need to keep the conversation going, to keep arguing her point, to make Kahlan see it. She wanted to surrender to the pain, Kahlan could see it trembling in her eyes, but she would not allow herself to be defeated by words.

“Let go, Cara,” she pleaded, even as every fibre of her being insisted that she keep arguing, that she make Cara see the person she’d grown into instead of the person she had been for so many years. There would be time for that argument later, she decided; for now, Cara needed to allow herself to lose consciousness. “Let go,” she repeated. “Just let yourself go. Stop fighting. Please.”

Cara gurgled desperately, and the thick smell of burning flesh and leather assaulted Kahlan’s nostrils. She refused to look down, not wanting to see the damage she was doing to Cara’s outfit, or to her own skin; instead, she used every ounce of strength she had to push her mind beyond the sound and the smell and the pain to remember that this had been asked of her. Cara needed this, had practically _begged_ for it (despite her futile insistences that she was doing no such thing), and it was Kahlan’s duty to administer it in spite of the costs. In spite of the agony.

“Kahlan,” Cara choked.

“Cara,” she replied, bringing up her other hand to cover Cara’s where they still gripped her agiel-wielding fingers, locking them together.

There was no strength at all in Cara’s arms as she pressed down on Kahlan’s hand, on the agiel, on her own abdomen as the weapon pushed against it. She was trying to apply more pressure, Kahlan could tell, but she didn’t have enough within her to see it done. That in itself gave Kahlan the confidence of knowing that she was close, that it wouldn’t be much more than a few moments before Cara was unconscious and she could release the agiel before it seared them both to their very souls. She was close, so very close.

“Listen to me,” Kahlan said, meeting Cara’s unfocused eyes and holding her gaze as best she could. “Listen to me, Cara. You need to let yourself go. Forget about all of this, forget all the things you did, all the things you’re feeling, everything. Forget it all, and just—”

Again, Cara gurgled, louder and ominous-sounding this time, and, despite the fact that she was still awake, Kahlan yanked the agiel away.

Cara’s eyes went wide at the sudden loss of contact and sensation, and she opened her mouth to lament (no doubt with great enthusiasm) Kahlan’s cowardice in being unable to see her task through, but no sound came out. Kahlan cast aside the agiel, gasping in relief as the throbbing pain left her hand where she’d been gripping it; she waited without patience for the residual ache to subside, and held both of Cara’s hands as tightly as she could in her own.

Within a matter of moments, Cara’s eyes rolled back, and Kahlan graced her with a sad smile as a low whine issued from somewhere deep in the Mord-Sith’s throat. Watching as the imminent unconsciousness took an almost visible hold, Kahlan leaned steadily forwards, gently easing Cara back against the pillows as her body went slack and the churning whimpers died in her throat.

There was nothing more Kahlan could do, beyond trying to get some more sleep herself while Cara was embracing her dreamless slumber (if it could be called that, and it turned Kahlan’s stomach to think of it as anything other than the torture-inflicted unconsciousness it was). She should have returned to her refuge on the floor, she knew, but she simply didn’t have the energy to move. Her hand was still a little raw with the lingering effects of having held the agiel for so long, and Cara’s breathing was too even, too comfortable, too close to perfect as her chest rose and fell with lazy rhythm. The bed was still too small for two, as it had always been... but Kahlan simply couldn’t bring herself to leave it.

Without even thinking about it, she wrapped herself around Cara, moulding herself to the other woman’s form, even as she carefully avoided contact with the smouldering leather at her midsection.

She would clean the wound in a minute or two, she decided with a tired half-nod, and repair the leather as well. She would do it all, just as soon as the pulsing ache in her hand died away, just as soon as she was sure that Cara was truly resting... just as soon as she was able to keep her eyelids up and her mind focused. She would do it (of course she would), because Cara was out cold and incapable, and someone had to take care of her when she couldn’t take care of herself. She would do it all, because Cara was her responsibility, and because she cared. She would... she would do everything...

...just as soon as Cara’s body wasn’t so warm. Just as soon as her own wasn’t fitting so perfectly to the curve of her back, the swell of her belly, the sweep of her hips. Just as soon as Cara’s chest stopped rising and falling with such hypnotically tragic rhythm, just as soon as Kahlan’s own breathing stopped catching it so flawlessly. Just as soon as she stopped feeling so completely relaxed.

Just as soon as she was able to remember that there were more important things than one almost-perfect moment.


	34. Chapter 34

Kahlan woke to the shimmering sunlight of mid-morning.

She couldn’t quite remember whether the room had still been bathed in the natural light of early evening when she’d surrendered to sleep, curled up against Cara as if she was some kind of substitute for the blankets the Mord-Sith had kicked off in her so-called restful slumber, but she suspected it might have been. At least, she rather hoped it had been, as the transition from dim half-light to full morning light would have meant they’d actually gotten a full night’s rest. And, judging by the still-slumbering body she was still tangled up around, so too had Cara.

Apparently, as brutal as the act had been, Cara’s hopes of being driven into dreamless sleep by the consciousness-devouring pain of her own agiel had proved fruitful; though Kahlan wasn’t entirely sure how long they’d been sleeping for, she was fairly certain that neither of them had woken at all over the course of whatever time it had been. At the very least, Kahlan knew that she herself hadn’t, and she was convinced that, if Cara had, the other woman’s stirring would have woken her in the process.

Extricating herself (more grudgingly than she’d ever admit) from the warmth and comfort of Cara’s body, Kahlan allowed herself the luxury of a long and lazy stretch. She felt rested. Not pleasant, exactly, and certainly not content, but, at the very least, as though she could make it through most of the day without feeling the overpowering urge to collapse. As though she might actually survive the rigours that she knew would present themselves the instant Cara woke up and realised that none of the feelings ricocheting through her heart had been changed by a single night of agiel-induced almost-rest.

With some effort, Kahlan pushed those darker thoughts to the back of her mind, forcing herself to fix instead on how well-rested she felt. She would need that relaxation, that not-quite contentment (brief as it was), if she was to survive the other, and she would need to remember with crystalline clarity how it felt. She needed this, just as Cara had needed the agiel to her stomach the previous night, just as Zedd had needed their forgiveness, just as Richard had needed Kahlan to be honest with him in spite of the heartache it would cause.

She moved slowly, fluidly, edging off the bed and crossing the room to the washbasin. A single glance at Cara was enough to tell her that she didn’t need to concern herself with the formalities of being quiet (as light a sleeper as the Mord-Sith usually was, she was clearly still out cold, because she hadn’t so much as stirred when Kahlan had shifted both their bodies in the process of getting up), but she made the effort by force of habit anyway.

Moving slowly, almost cautiously, she stripped and set to work washing herself as best she could with the meagre facilities, silently envying the bath that Cara had taken the previous night. A warm bath sounded like a gift from the Creator just then, but, however soundly Cara seemed to be sleeping, Kahlan had no intention of leaving her alone, and certainly not for the sake of her own leisure.

It was a few long minutes before she felt clean and refreshed enough to redress, and, when she was done, she indulged herself in watching the rare fog of unselfconscious calm that seemed to wrap itself around Cara only when she was asleep. Even before all of this had heightened her wildness a hundredfold, Cara had always been restless or aggressive when she was awake (and occasionally both at the same time, much to the detriment of any creature within a hundred leagues of her). Now, though, wrapped up in sleep as she was, she seemed almost human.

Kahlan wasn’t sure how long it was before Cara woke, but it couldn’t have been much more than a half-hour, if even that long. It surprised her, really, that the Mord-Sith had slept so much longer than she had; even after taking the effects of the agiel into consideration, it seemed almost unfathomable that she would sleep so long without waking. Cara was an expert in the art of thriving on very little sleep, and Kahlan had doubted that even the searing burn she’d inflicted with the agiel would have been enough to keep her unconscious for more than an hour or two. Cara was, after all, nothing if not stubborn... and, for once, she actually had a legitimate reason to keep herself awake, even if her body had been protesting the mere thought of it.

Still, by some miracle, she had slept, and slept well; had the reason not been so painful, Kahlan would almost have been proud of herself for having helped it to happen. As it was, she refused to feel anything but guilt for what she’d been forced to do with the agiel, and instead just watched in silent awe as Cara lifted her hips, rolled over, and slowly opened her sleep-glazed eyes.

“Kahlan?” she croaked, voice throaty and a little groggy.

“I’m here,” Kahlan promised, crossing the space between the basin and the bed in two steps. “I’m right here, Cara.”

Cara licked her lips. “Water,” she said, a request clad in the trademark Mord-Sith garb of authority. “And a cloth.”

The note of command, small as it was, brought a smile to Kahlan’s face, and she leaned over to retrieve the waterskin without a second thought. Handing it over with what she hoped wasn’t too sympathetic a smile, she crossed back to the basin to wet the abused scrap of fabric that had served as a washcloth too many times already. Cara, predictably, inclined her head a little but made no effort to thank Kahlan for her kindness.

“How are you feeling?” Kahlan asked, as Cara sipped from the waterskin. She was almost afraid of the answer, but she knew better than to try and prolong the inevitable by not asking at all. “You’re looking a little better, at least.”

Cara snorted a laugh at that, nearly choking on the water.

“I’m sure I do,” she remarked dryly, with a poorly-concealed grimace. “There are few things more conducive to good health, I’m sure, than taking an agiel to the gut until you’re rendered unconscious.”

There was no feint at humour in the observation, just a touch of self-deprecating weariness; still, Kahlan felt a pulse of guilt drive itself like a nail through her heart. It didn’t help, knowing how fervently she’d argued against the idea, and it certainly didn’t help to know that Cara would have pushed and pushed for the rest of the night if she hadn’t conceded as quickly as she did. She felt responsible, guilty and furious with herself, even though she knew (deep down, where her self-loathing mind couldn’t ever find it) that the choice had been out of her hands the whole time.

“I told you not to,” she said, the protest coming out as far more of a whine than it should have. “I told you—”

“You did,” Cara affirmed, dabbing at her face with the cloth in a bid at removing the dried blood and sweat that lingered on her skin. “But, like _I_ told _you_ , I needed it. I needed the pain. And I... I still need it. It’s a part of me, it’s who I am. And, Kahlan—” She paused in her ministrations, looking at the Mother Confessor with eager eyes, “—I don’t doubt that I’ll need it again from you. Probably the next time we rest.”

She looked so hopeful, and yet all Kahlan could do was sigh with bone-deep frustration, the guilt dissolving into aggravation at Cara’s refusal to accept any other means of recovery than pain. It was too easy, too Mord-Sith, and Kahlan would not be a part of it again.

“No,” she said, proud of how strong her voice was. “Not again. Once was too much, and I won’t go through it again. Not even for you, Cara.”

Cara narrowed her eyes, seeming to consider her words, and Kahlan watched unhappily as the need for pain waged war behind her eyes with the desire not to make Kahlan suffer on her behalf. The conflict was so pronounced, so profound, that Kahlan found herself almost feeling bad for being the cause of it. Bad, she realised, for not wanting to see her friend hurt any more than she already was, for not wanting to be the one who had to inflict that hurt. It was so far beyond absurd that she would have laughed out loud if it wasn’t also so serious.

“I don’t know what else to do,” Cara admitted after a few moments. She wrung her hands, the cloth twisting in her grasp, eyes dark with torment. “Pain is all I know. It’s all I can understand. Kahlan, it’s all that I am.”

“But it’s not all there is,” Kahlan told her, very softly.

Cara met her gaze, steady but sorrowful. “Right now, it is.”

Sighing heavily, frustration and sympathy coming together in a single sound, Kahlan placed a gentle hand on Cara’s shoulder. She knew, of course, before it happened, that the Mord-Sith would flinch and pull away, but she couldn’t stop herself making the effort anyway. What Cara needed, more than anything else in the world right then, was exactly those softly reassuring touches – a hand on her shoulder an arm across her back, lips pressed to her brow, the embrace of a friend and not an agiel – but it was still too far beyond her ability to accept any of them.

Knowing better than to push them now, though, Kahlan casually switched tactics. “Are you hungry?” she asked, unassuming.

Cara shrugged carelessly, though Kahlan saw through the practiced indifference to the sparking interest beneath. “I assume you wish for breakfast?”

It was the closest she’d ever get to actually admitting that _she_ wanted breakfast, Kahlan knew, though she was clearly just a hair’s breadth away from a rumbling belly. Chuckling to herself, Kahlan allowed herself to be the scapegoat for Cara’s pride; if it would get the other woman to eat something without argument or complaint, she would have done nearly anything.

“Right,” she affirmed with a smile. “I’m hungry.”

“I thought you might be,” Cara said, nodding as if she’d somehow managed to fuel Kahlan’s appetite with the power of suggestion alone. “We can eat, then, if you desire it.”

“You’re very thoughtful,” Kahlan told her, deadpan.

“I know,” Cara replied, sounding every bit as sage as Zedd on one of his good days.

As tempting as it was to cast aside the gloom and despondence of the room in immediate deference to the more welcome atmosphere that would no doubt be found down in the bar, Kahlan wasn’t nearly so zealous as to neglect what needed to be done first. She fixed Cara with what she hoped was a stern glare, eyes raking down the Mord-Sith’s lean body until they were resting on the burn mark on her abdomen, wide and gaping like a beacon of pain and trauma right in the middle of Cara’s leathers.

“You should clean that,” she said, hoping she sounded authoritative, even as she fought to ignore the stab of resurfacing guilt at having failed to do so the previous night. “And your leathers will need some stitching as well.”

Cara straightened up, staring at her as though the suggestion was the most offensive thing she’d ever heard in her entire life.

“One does not _stitch_ Mord-Sith leather,” she snapped, sounding positively aghast. “One _repairs_ it. It is not some common travelling dress, Kahlan. It’s _armour_.”

Had she not been so deathly serious, Kahlan would have laughed at her melodramatics. “All right,” she said instead, trying to take Cara as seriously as she clearly wanted to be taken. “Your leathers will need some _repairing_. Better?”

“Infinitely,” Cara replied; she was still completely serious, but this time Kahlan couldn’t keep from laughing.

Cleaning the wound was the simple part; the hole in the leather was wide enough that Kahlan didn’t even need to remove the clothing (much to the relief of her increasingly strained chastity) to get at the injury underneath. It was swollen and bloody, but didn’t seem to be particularly close to infection; Apparently, Cara’s skin was more durable than her otherworld counterpart’s was, if the number of festering fevers she’d soothed away while her companion was under the spell’s effect was anything to judge by, and she was exceptionally glad of the fact. As, she suspected, was Cara.

As angry as the wound looked, Cara didn’t so much as blink as Kahlan cleaned it with the scrap of rough (and, by this point, overused) fabric. If she was honest, Kahlan was perhaps a little more methodical in taking her time on the task than she needed to be, if only because she was hoping that Cara would give in and offer some kind of reaction; she didn’t want to make her companion suffer any more than she already was, of course, but it broke her heart to see her so stoic. It was as if, even now, she was afraid of showing any corner of herself to the woman who had seen so much more of her than either of them could imagine. Kahlan had earned the right to see Cara’s pain, and Cara had earned the right to express it, and Kahlan’s heart flooded with a surge of simultaneous sorrow and aggravation to see them both denied the thing they had gone to such lengths to earn.

When it became apparent that Cara wasn’t going to submit to showing any trace of discomfort, however obvious it was that she felt it and however completely they both needed to see it shown, Kahlan gave up her efforts and declared the wound clean enough. There was no masking the touch of relief that flickered like a candle-flame across Cara’s features, even as Kahlan knew better than to point it out, and the Mother Confessor masked a sad smile as she moved on to the (rather more frustrating) task of repairing the gaping hole in the Mord-Sith’s leather.

Cara’s insistence that her leathers were armour (and that, as such, they deserved to be treated with the utmost care and respect) was endearing for approximately fourteen seconds. Then, when Kahlan tried to explain her intentions with as much patience as she still possessed by that point (which wasn’t very much), it swiftly became infuriating. Armour or not, leather was still a fabric, and Kahlan had had every intention of stitching it regardless of Cara’s indignant complaints, but the Mord-Sith simply would not allow it to be done. It would be patched – and patched _properly_ – she grumbled, or it would not be repaired at all. There was, after all, no room for badly-fixed armour on the battlefield.

It was simply too much hassle, Kahlan decided, to try and explain that, with the Keeper defeated and the Midlands closer to peace than they had ever been before, there weren’t likely to be any battlefields in the foreseeable future. She wasn’t entirely sure she could handle the look of childlike disappointment she was sure would flicker across Cara’s too-fragile features at the thought of having to find some other pastime than violence.

And so, because it wasn’t worth the argument to convince the Mord-Sith that stitching would work just as effectively as patching, Kahlan used strips from her own outfit to make a patch for the hole, and wasted far more time than she would have liked in repairing the damage. Cara, she couldn’t help thinking, really should have done it herself, since the damage had been all her idea in the first place, and she still wasn’t happy about having had to play a part in it at all... and yet, there was something oddly wonderful about being the one to do these things. To patch up Cara’s clothes, to clean her wounds... to take care of her, even in such a small way as this. It was the greatest honour Cara was capable of bestowing, Kahlan knew, and she would be foolish not to recognise it as that.

Cara did not allow anyone to take care of her. Everything she did, she insisted on doing for herself, right down to the removal and replacement of her clothing (a task that Kahlan knew from experience wasn’t intended for a Mord-Sith to undertake alone), even though it took twice as long as it would have done if she’d ever just allowed herself to ask for assistance. But, of course, she was too proud, and too stubborn, and too damn _Cara_... and so, far more often than any of them could count, they had been forced to depart an hour later than they’d wanted on any given morning after having to wait for Cara to finish dressing. And, because none of them had wanted an agiel to the throat, her companions had not said a word about it.

But here, in the locked-away solitude of this ill-kept bedroom, seemingly without even thinking of the weakness it showed, Cara was allowing Kahlan to clean the wound on her abdomen, and to repair a hole in her leather, and to do those things with her usual thoughtful diligence, taking her time and being careful. Even knowing as she did how much those gestures would mean to the Mother Confessor, she allowed them without so much as a word of complaint (at least, notwithstanding her outrage at the disrespectful insinuation that Mord-Sith leather was just another article of clothing). It was a gift, really, and Kahlan accepted it with open arms, labouring over the annoying leather with an enthusiasm that overshadowed even her aggravation at having to adhere once again to Cara’s overblown Mord-Sith standards of self-importance.

“I would have thought you’d be better at this,” Cara observed when she was done, standing up to assess the quality of Kahlan’s work.

Kahlan chuckled wryly; she hadn’t really expected a thank-you, and so the lack of one didn’t bother her.

“I would’ve thought you’d be less inclined to damage your precious leathers in the first place,” she shot back in good-natured retaliation.

Cara’s features darkened, and Kahlan knew that her thoughts were returning to the reasons why she’d asked for the pain in the first place. For a long moment, Kahlan wanted nothing more than to drive her head against the nearest wall for being so foolishly short-sighted, but she knew well enough that doing so wouldn’t help either of them, and it wouldn’t undo any of the damage (literal or figurative) that had been done, either by the agiel or by her poorly-conceived remark. Moreover, she knew far better than to expect that an apology for having put her foot in her mouth would be met with anything other than disdain and annoyance, and so she didn’t try to offer one.

Instead, because it was the only option that wouldn’t end in frustration on both sides, she turned her attention (perhaps too swiftly, though Cara didn’t seem to complain) to the subject at hand. Breakfast.

“If it meets with your approval,” she said, forcing her tone to remain light despite the tumult rippling between them, “can we go now?”

Cara gave a wordless nod of affirmation; if Kahlan hadn’t known better, she would have sworn she saw a flicker of relief touch the Mord-Sith’s features in the instant before she washed the alien sentiment away in a flood of practiced indifference. Whether it was gratitude for the shift in subject, or simply gladness because she was hungry (or, indeed, if Kahlan had simply imagined it had ever been there at all), she would never know.

It must have been earlier in the day than Kahlan had thought, because, when they made their way down the stairs and out into the tavern, it was practically void of life.

Without preamble, Cara made her way to the nearest solid surface, lowering herself into a rickety-looking chair with a groan that she didn’t even try to conceal. Kahlan wasn’t sure whether it was because the headaches were plaguing her again, or whether she was still feeling the effects of the newly-cleaned but still present wound in her gut, but she knew that Cara must have been in some very real pain (even by Mord-Sith standards) to allow herself such a blatant expression of discomfort in a public place, clear to anyone with a pair of eyes. It was so unlike her, and yet so beautifully unguarded, Kahlan didn’t know what to make of it.

Not wanting to risk upsetting the tentative camaraderie they’d established, she opted (despite her every instinct) to keep quiet on the subject, instead sticking to the safer topic of food. “What can I get you?” she asked. “And don’t ask for ale. It’s far too early, even for you.”

Cara scowled, but it was a scowl laced with appreciation; though she’d never say it aloud, Kahlan could see that she was grateful beyond words for the Confessor’s decision not to mention her momentary lapse. Resisting the temptation to smile her acceptance, Kahlan merely tilted her head and waited for an answer.

“Very well,” Cara grumbled moodily after a moment’s deliberation. “Meat, then, if you insist on ruining my enjoyment.”

Kahlan chuckled. “What kind—”

“Spirits, Kahlan, I don’t care!”

The vehemence of the outburst was not entirely surprising, given Cara’s ill-concealed condition, and so Kahlan made no efforts to look affronted by it. Nor did she try to appear concerned, though she was, because she knew that that would be the fastest way to send Cara running as far away from her as possible. Finding the right amount of compassion to show to a Mord-Sith was a precise science (and a very dangerous one, at that), and, though Kahlan seldom got it exactly right, she was often far closer than most others. It wasn’t perfect, she knew, but it was better than anyone else could have done.

“All right,” she said softly, and smiled when Cara allowed her to pat the back of her hand where it rested upon the table.

The relative emptiness of the tavern made it a swift task to order breakfast, and she returned to Cara’s side within a couple of minutes, two glasses of fruit juice in hand. She had briefly considered allowing Cara to indulge in something alcoholic despite the earliness of the hour (if ever there was a situation that warranted early-morning drinking, she mused, it was this one), but she simply didn’t trust the Mord-Sith to lose control of her faculties right then. Besides, she hoped that the natural sugar of the juice would do well to restore some needed strength to them both.

Cara, of course, didn’t utter so much as a word of thanks, even as she thirstily chugged the drink that was placed in front of her, and Kahlan made no effort to coax the gratitude out of her. Instead, she simply sipped her own drink and watched quietly as Cara slammed her empty glass on the table the instant she was done, and turned her attention to holding her fingertips with ever-increasing pressure against her forehead.

Apparently, Kahlan deduced, it was the headaches that were bothering her, and not the agiel-inflicted injury.

“Cara,” she said, and was perfectly prepared for the heated glare that Cara shot her.

Ignoring the scowl, she reached across the table, taking Cara’s hands in her own and gently lowering them to the table. That done, and not missing a beat despite the growing intensity of Cara’s ire, she brought her own back up to cup the sides of the Mord-Sith’s face, thumbs gently brushing the point where she was sure she could feel Cara’s temples throbbing.

“Let me,” she murmured gently, circling the offending area.

“What is this?” Cara hissed, instinctively self-protective.

Kahlan smiled. “Something that isn’t pain.”

It was a simple statement, but one that elicited a look of such adorable bafflement on Cara’s face that Kahlan found herself wondering if she’d inadvertently spoken in a foreign tongue. There was helplessness, almost, in the way that Cara was staring at her, as though some part of her ached to embrace the sensation, while the rest wanted only to break contact and tear away before it became too close to reality. From the look of her, it seemed that the juxtaposition between the two was so great – so confusing – that it rendered her utterly unable to do either of them, or anything else at all except stare.

Taking the almost-frightened stillness as encouragement, Kahlan gently caressed Cara’s temples with the pads of her thumbs, rhythmic circles borne of tenderness, and watched with a silent smile as Cara’s eyelids fluttered lazily beneath the combined weight of appreciation and befuddlement.

“Kahlan,” she managed; her voice was thick, and, though she probably intended it as a complaint, it didn’t sound like one at all. “Kahlan, this isn’t—”

“Don’t,” Kahlan told her, authority mingling with compassion. “Just accept it, Cara.”

Cara twitched at that, apparently annoyed at having been instructed to do anything, least of all something so apparently unwanted as this, but acquiesced regardless, closing her eyes completely and leaning almost unconsciously into Kahlan’s ghostly touches.

“This is weakness,” she groaned, visibly hating herself for accepting it. “This is—”

“It’s strength, Cara,” Kahlan replied, her words as soft as her touch. “It’s shaping pain into something else, something good. It’s friendship. It’s—”

_Love._

Suddenly shaking, her hands stilled. Beneath them, Cara grumbled out a whine of protest at the loss of rhythm, but Kahlan ignored her. Neither of them were ready for that admission, not yet. Cara was still reeling from the memory of experiences that weren’t hers, still lost in a haze of pain and trauma that she still believed were her penance. She was broken and lost, a helpless little girl dressed in the leather trappings of a monster, and the last thing she needed was for Kahlan to frighten her with words like ‘love’.

“It’s compassion,” she finished, hating how pathetic the word sounded by comparison.

“No,” Cara replied, sounding bitter. “It’s not. It’s _pity_ , Kahlan. You pity me.”

Despite herself, though she knew that Cara would have said exactly the same thing no matter who was sitting opposite her, the accusation left Kahlan feeling wounded.

“Don’t you know me better than that?” she asked, unable to keep the flinching hurt from touching her voice, though she knew that Cara (even now) would no doubt relish the sound of it. “Cara, I would never pity you.”

“You do it all the time,” Cara retorted, relentless. “Every time you speak to me. Every time you look at me. From the moment I came out of the spell, it’s all I’ve seen in you. You see me as a child... helpless and vulnerable and in need.” She growled low in her throat. “I am not a child, Kahlan.”

“No,” Kahlan conceded, “but you _are_ in need.”

What happened next, she couldn’t be entirely sure of. All she knew was that, one moment, she was gazing deep into Cara’s eyes, willing her with all her heart to understand the difference between worry and pity... and then, less than a second later, she was suddenly on her back, staring up at the ceiling with a bolt of pain lancing across the side of her face like white lightning, and Cara standing over her like a harbinger of death.

“Don’t,” the Mord-Sith was panting, “ _ever_ say that again.”

Suddenly, Kahlan was exceptionally glad that the bar was as good as empty; she had little memory of having taken the blow, but her instincts told her that it must have looked embarrassing.

“Did that help?” she asked, studying Cara in such a way that made it perfectly clear she wasn’t angry.

Cara growled, and that was answer enough.

Gingerly, Kahlan pulled herself upright, climbing to her feet with careful slowness as the room pitched. Apparently, Cara had hit her harder than she’d thought; she wasn’t sure whether to be impressed by the Mord-Sith’s strength despite her precarious state, or simply amused that she’d waste so much of it on such a purposeless assault.

“Cara,” she said, still taking care to make it clear that she wasn’t holding a grudge for the ringing in her ears or the tilting of the room. “You have to stop substituting pain for pain. You can’t keep taking one kind of pain and turning it into a different kind just because you think you’ll be able to understand it better. You can’t just bleed out everything until there’s nothing left. Sometimes, pain just needs to _heal_.”

Both of Cara’s agiels were in her hands, and Kahlan watched as she squeezed them tightly enough that she was sure her knuckles were turning white beneath her leather gloves; briefly, she found herself wondering which of the two of them Cara was planning to use the weapons on, and the fact that both were as likely as each other fuelled the worry that had been bubbling ominously in the pit her stomach. Cara was unstable; it only took a moment’s glance at her face to know that, and Kahlan was afraid of what she’d do – to herself, so much more than anyone else.

“Mord-Sith _are_ pain,” Cara snarled, feral.

“Maybe,” Kahlan conceded. “But you’re more than just Mord-Sith. You’ve been with us for over a year. You know that. You’re more than your training, and you’re more than the pain that shaped you. You’re more, Cara. You’re one of us.”

“I can never be like you,” Cara replied, and the cracking of her voice told Kahlan that the rage was a cover for something so much more vulnerable. “I... I...”

“You can,” Kahlan promised her. “You _are_.”

“I thought I could be,” Cara replied, and her hands were shaking as hard as her voice. “But I don’t know how to... I can’t reconcile this, Kahlan. This is pain beyond pain. It is breaking beyond breaking. And it’s all my own doing. Mord-Sith are pain, not because it’s all they know, but because it is all they’re capable of. We cannot feel, cannot give... and we cannot _love_. These things are beyond our grasp. All we have to offer, for ourselves and others as well, is pain.”

“Dahlia gave you more,” Kahlan reminded her. “She gave you compassion, pleasure, kindness. What she gave you was love.”

Cara stopped in her tracks, choking low in her throat; for a long moment, the only sound between them was the near-deafening hum of her agiels as she gripped them ever more tightly with each moment that passed.

“Isn’t that what this was about?” Kahlan demanded, emboldened by the way Cara seemed unable to argue. “Wasn’t that why you wanted to go through all this in the first place? So you could remember what it was to be loved, to have a sister who was more than a Mord-Sith? To have a friend, a confidante, a mate in her?”

“Kahlan—”

“Because of her, you showed mercy to a Confessor,” Kahlan went on, ignoring the shuddering protestations of the woman in front of her. “Because of what she bred in you, because of her _weakness_ , you knew friendship. You knew affection. You _did_ know love, Cara, because of what she was to you. In a world where you had her, you were so much more than pain. And now... now you’ve had the chance to see that world, to see that Cara, I won’t let you believe yourself to be less. I won’t let you undo every inch of progress you’ve made with us, everything I saw in you while you were living her life, everything you’ve become and everything you’ve always been.”

She broke off, suddenly realising that she needed to breathe. Cara was staring at her, eyes wide and mouth wider, and Kahlan drew strength from her expression, swallowing down just enough air to keep going.

“You’re more than the scream of your agiels,” she said, “and you’re more than the headaches and the nosebleeds and the memories of a breaking you never even went through. You’re more than the knowledge of your past deeds, and you’re more than the remorse you never thought you’d feel for them. You are _human_ , Cara.”

“I am...” Cara started. “I am... I...”

“Say it,” Kahlan commanded her, urgent. “ _Say it_.”

Cara closed her eyes. “I am... afraid.”

Moving slowly, almost worried that any sudden movement would frighten Cara into running away, Kahlan closed the space between them and pulled the Mord-Sith into an embrace, not even bothering to try and avoid the rods still in her hands. What was a surreptitious brush with an agiel, she thought, after what they’d been through together?

“I know,” she whispered into her hair, heart melting when Cara didn’t pull away despite her obvious desperation to resist the unfamiliar intimacy. “I know.”

“I can’t do this,” Cara whimpered, so very scared. “I can’t know what I know, endure the pain I endure, remember every ounce of suffering I ever caused... and still _feel_.”

“You can,” Kahlan told her. “Because you’re not alone, Cara. You don’t have to go through all this by yourself, and you don’t have to make yourself suffer just because suffering is all you know. I’m here. I’m right here, and I know all the things you’ve done – in this world, and in that one – and I’m still here. I’m still here, and I’m still holding you, and I still care for you. I know everything about you, Cara... your deeds and your pain and your life, the life you lived and the life you didn’t. I know it all, and I still love you.”

Cara tensed in her arms, as though she’d been physically struck; Kahlan waited for her to pull away, to stare slack-jawed and wide-eyed in some combination of horror and disbelief at that word – that terrifying, hated, alien word – but she didn’t. She didn’t move at all for some time, and it was only by the occasional tremors that wracked both their bodies that Kahlan knew she was still breathing at all. When she finally did shift, however (and Kahlan had no idea how much later it was, minutes or moments or millennia), it wasn’t to pull away; it was to bury her face in the crook of Kahlan’s neck, settling against the Confessor like her arms and her embrace and her touch were the only home she’d ever known.

“I still can’t say it,” she mumbled; her voice was thick and indistinct and choked by unshed tears, but Kahlan didn’t care. “I still can’t tell you. Even now. Kahlan...”

“Shh,” Kahlan soothed. “You don’t have to.”

Finally, Cara did pull away, and her eyes were as wide and wet as Kahlan had ever seen them. She wasn’t crying, but she was dangerously close.

“It’s not enough,” she said, the sentence coming as little more than a ragged breath. “It’s not enough just to want to. It’s not enough.”

“Cara,” Kahlan heard herself breathe. 

She had never been more grateful for anything than she was when the barkeep chose the moment that followed to bring their breakfast, because she had no idea what she could have possibly said to add to the name that was suddenly everything in her world, what possible assurances she could have given that would give even a fragment of what they both knew Cara needed.

“We should eat,” Cara said blankly, eyes fixed on the plate as it was deposited carelessly on the table. “Before it gets cold.”

They ate, together but separately, in mostly silence. Cara kept her attention locked on the food in front of her, face inscrutable and eyes suddenly void of all life, and Kahlan focused on everything in the room that wasn’t Cara. She wanted to say more, to tell the other woman everything, to pour out every part of herself and her feelings, but she knew that it just wasn’t possible. She’d used the word, _love_ , and Cara hadn’t fled, but any more and she knew that would all change. She couldn’t hear that word, not in the context Kahlan had meant it. Not while she was still so vulnerable.

Whatever steps Cara took from now on, Kahlan knew she needed to take them herself. Kahlan had done everything she could, had taken blows and held agiels and sat as witness to tortures beyond measure... she had done it all, and she had done it (she liked to think) with little more than the barest of flinches. She had emptied herself, lost herself, held herself before Cara, as open and exposed as the wounds the Mord-Sith seemed to crave so desperately, and she had offered everything she had. There was nothing more that she could do or say, however badly she wished there was. Cara needed to take her healing into her own hands... and, if she needed help, she needed to ask for it. It wasn’t good enough, not any more, for Kahlan to keep offering. Cara needed to start accepting.

“Kahlan,” Cara mumbled around a mouthful of rabbit, and Kahlan felt her heart skip a beat. “Kahlan, I...”

“Cara?” Kahlan asked, genuinely curious as the Mord-Sith flailed hopelessly.

“I am...” She closed her eyes. “I am sorry, Kahlan.”

“For what?” Kahlan asked blankly. She couldn’t quite conceal her disappointment, but Cara didn’t seem to notice it.

“Everything,” she answered, with raw honesty. “For making you endure so much on my behalf. For making you witness the things you must have seen. For putting you through my pain, and for making you inflict it. For...” If Kahlan didn’t know better, she would have sworn Cara was blushing. “...for punching you, just because you said I was in need. You were right to say it, and, even if you hadn’t been, I was wrong to strike you for it.”

Her eyes were rolling wildly in her head, as if she wasn’t sure where to look, and that in itself was enough to tell Kahlan just how important this speech was to her. She wanted to say something, to tell Cara that she understood the gravity of the apology, the depth of what she was hearing, but she couldn’t bring herself to interrupt.

“Kahlan,” Cara pressed on unsteadily. “I want you to know that, of all the suffering I’ve inflicted, and all the pain I’m yet to inflict in my life... I do not wish to inflict any more on you.”

Kahlan didn’t know what to say; part of her knew just how precious an admission that was, how close it came to the ever-elusive pledge of affection that, even now, she’d only ever heard falling from the lips of a Cara that wasn’t hers, but the rest of her couldn’t help wishing for something more than that. She knew it was unfair, knew that Cara was doing as much as she was able, giving up everything she had as best she could, but there was still an indefinable void screaming in her, and an ache for completeness.

“Don’t apologise,” she said at last, and the words sounded as hollow to her own ears as she knew they must sound to Cara’s. “Everything you did, I let you do. I agreed to be there with you for the spell, and I let you talk me into... into doing what you wanted last night.”

She couldn’t quite bring herself to speak the words, describe the act that still made her ache to think of, even as Cara quirked an eyebrow at her obvious evasiveness. Ignoring her, Kahlan left it at that, moving on with as much swiftness as she could.

“I said you were in need, even though I knew you’d react the way you did. You’ve done nothing to me, Cara, that I didn’t bring on myself, willingly, for you. Trust me, Cara, you have nothing to apologise for.” She leaned across, brushing Cara’s wrist almost intangibly with the back of her hand, even as her aching heart cried out for so much more. “Don’t waste your energies on regret. Spend them on healing.”

For a long moment, Cara said nothing, staring thoughtfully down at the rabbit carcass she’d been devouring and visibly trying to put into words all the tumultuous thoughts that were ricocheting through her.

“I don’t know how to,” she said, after what seemed like a lifetime of strained and effortful silence. “I was not exaggerating, or being stubborn, when I told you that pain is the only thing I can understand.” She sighed, as though, for the first time in her life, she truly hated the creature she had been made. “Kahlan, truly... pain is all I know.”

It was a tragic revelation, Kahlan couldn’t help thinking, not least of all because she had hoped that the spell might have made a change in that department.

The other world’s Cara had been so much purer, so much more open to feelings and emotions, so much more expressive of herself. Had she been able to survive Rahl’s enhanced efforts to re-break her, instead of succumbing to the pull of dark magic as they knew she had, Kahlan wondered how she would have recovered from the trauma of such pain. Would she have been as much affected as Cara was just from the ghost of it, or would she have been clear-minded enough to realise that all the regret in the world couldn’t change what had been done?

As she reached across the table, cupping Cara’s cheek in her hand, feeling the way she tensed even as she leaned reflexively into the tender touch, Kahlan wondered if perhaps it was simply that her Cara had more to regret.

“Teach me,” Cara whispered, so softly that Kahlan almost didn’t hear her over the twin pounding of their hearts. “Teach me to heal.”


	35. Chapter 35

They lingered almost luxuriantly over breakfast, even after the food was gone, not really talking (though Kahlan wanted to), but simply drinking in each other’s company. Cara was pale, looking as though she still was fighting to keep her headache at bay, and Kahlan in turn was fighting to keep from reaching across and resuming the massage she’d begun earlier. She wanted to help, even though she knew it would be met with resistance, and she would have given anything to make Cara realise that there was no shame in admitting she was feeling unwell.

“Kahlan,” Cara said, after what must have been an hour or two of relatively amicable silence. “You’re staring at me.”

The irony of the remark wasn’t lost on Kahlan; the whole fiasco had started, she recalled, when Cara had made a near-identical observation directed at Zedd, and she couldn’t quite suppress the shiver of recollection that rippled through her at the thought. It would be different this time, though, because Kahlan knew everything, and Cara in turn knew that. They were on equal ground now, and neither of them was Zedd. And, most important of all, Kahlan had earned the right to stare at the woman who had taken her through the all fires of the Underworld and back again.

“I am,” she admitted with a smile.

“Don’t,” Cara told her, but there was none of the malice that had oozed from her voice when she’d given Zedd the same instruction.

“Why not?” Kahlan asked.

“I...” Cara started, then cut herself off.

Kahlan knew that she’d intended to throw out one of her countless sarcastic retorts, to drive Kahlan away with her rapier wit so that there was no chance of the softness underneath ever being seen, but they had both evolved beyond such cloak-and-dagger evasion by now. If Cara wanted Kahlan to help her heal, Kahlan needed to see all of her.

“Cara,” Kahlan persuaded gently.

“You make me feel exposed,” Cara admitted, sounding strained. “I feel like you can see into my soul, and I don’t... Kahlan, I don’t want you to see it.” She closed her eyes, as though that would some how allow her to hide from the Confessor’s intrusive gaze. “There is so much darkness there.”

“There’s beauty in there too,” Kahlan told her, and she had never been more sincere in her life. “And I can see them both.”

“Why are you so good to me?” Cara breathed, and the defeat in her tone was soul-rending; it was as if she truly could not understand. “I do not deserve you.”

“It’s not your place to decide what you deserve,” Kahlan reminded her, leaning forward to cup the side of her face, thumb just brushing the corner of her lips. “You don’t get to choose who forgives you for your past deeds... and you don’t get to choose who loves you in spite of them.”

Cara closed her eyes. “Kahlan.”

“You’re home, Cara,” Kahlan informed her, voice hard even as every other inch of her was soft. “And you’re loved, too, whether you want to be or not. You are _loved_.”

Almost without even realising she was doing it, Cara turned her head towards the hand that cupped it, and Kahlan felt a shiver threaten to overpower her as Cara’s lips pressed almost imperceptibly against the edge of her thumb. It was barely a contact at all, so fleeting that Kahlan could almost believe she was imagining it, and yet it was inescapable.

“Cara...” she heard herself whisper, and her chest pulsed with pain as the name shattered the moment.

Cara wrenched back, eyes wide, as if she hadn’t even realised what she’d been doing.

“We should find Richard,” she blurted out, voice tight as she sputtered in fractured sentences. “And Zedd. We should leave this place. We’ve stayed here too long already. We need to get back on the road. We need to get going. We...”

“The quest is over,” Kahlan pointed out softly. “We’ve got nothing but time, Cara, and your healing takes priority.”

Cara exhaled shakily. Kahlan wanted to reach for her, to steady her, to do anything that would extend the flicker of contact between them, but she was rooted to the spot. There was a depth of hopeless confusion in Cara’s eyes, as alien as a tidal wave in a desert, and Kahlan wasn’t sure she wanted to be there when it broke.

“You cloud my mind,” Cara murmured at last, as if the interlude had never happened. “You make me forget myself. Spirits, Kahlan, you make me want to—”

“—heal?” Kahlan finished for her.

“Heal,” Cara affirmed quietly. “When you talk to me, when you touch me... you make me believe you. You make me believe in _myself_. You make me believe that I’m worth more than I truly am... and you make me wish, with all my soul, that I could be all you see in me.”

Slowly but with urgency, Kahlan leaned in, a breath away from touching distance. “You are,” she insisted. “Cara, I see those things because they’re there.”

Again, Cara’s eyelids fluttered, uncertain but accepting. She looked so small, so desperate to believe what she was being told, it was more than Kahlan could do to keep from closing what scant space remained between them. Her own eyes drifted closed, as if she could pretend she was someone else if only she couldn’t see herself...

...and then, almost intangibly, she pressed her lips against Cara’s.

It was less than a kiss, less than a moment. It was contact, that was all, brief and fleeting and so close to perfect for something so small. It was contact and comfort, but it made Kahlan’s heart sing like nothing she could remember. And it made the breath catch in Cara’s throat as though she’d been struck.

“You cloud my mind,” she said again, shaking hard as she pulled back, and stood. “You confuse me, Kahlan. You frighten me.”

“I care for you,” Kahlan said.

“And that frightens me as well.”

Nodding silently, Kahlan climbed to her feet.

“We should find Richard,” Cara repeated, as though the Seeker’s name was the only defence mechanism she had left. “I don’t wish to remain here another night.”

Kahlan gave a wordless nod. Whatever Richard and Zedd may have to say on the subject of their leaving so soon, she was grateful for the reprieve, and glad of the opportunity to sort out the the delirium-tinted haze that had descended on her in the moment their lips had touched.

It hadn’t been a kiss, she reminded herself. Not even close.

The knowledge did little to slow her racing pulse, or calm her elevated breathing.

It took some time to find Richard and Zedd; they weren’t in either of their purchased rooms, nor were they accosting the kitchens, and it was only after Cara’s sensitive hearing picked up the distinct sound of exertion through one of the open windows that Kahlan stopped to think that the two men might have been taking advantage of the warm morning to indulge in some much-neglected training.

The excuse to go outside was a much welcomed one, at least for Kahaln; as the warm morning sunlight struck her face, she realised that it had been days since she’d last ventured out into the fresh air, and she took a long moment to relish the sensation of the sun on her skin and the light breeze caressing her face. Beside her, she felt Cara shiver at the unexpected sensation, but the Mord-Sith made no attempt to revel in the familiarity and warmth like Kahlan was. It didn’t surprise her, and didn’t particularly sadden her (it was, after all, just Cara), but she couldn’t help wishing that there was enough openness left in the Mord-Sith that she’d give herself that.

They found the men, after a few minutes, in a little garden area towards the rear of the tavern; as suspected, Richard was training with the Sword of Truth, slicing effortlessly through little bolts of multicoloured light that Zedd was conjuring from thin air (presumably in lieu of fruit or vegetables to hack into pieces, as they usually preferred). Not wanting to interrupt or disturb them, Kahlan simply stood and watched their exertions, enjoying the way Richard’s muscles seemed to glint in the sunlight, and the soft but genuine smile on Zedd’s face.

“Kahlan!” Richard called, when he finally looked up from his task, sheathing his sword and wiping the sweat from his brow. “Cara. How are you?”

Cara stared at the ground.

“She’s restless,” Kahlan answered on her behalf, squeezing Cara’s arm in what she hoped was a reassuring gesture (though, judging by the way Cara flinched and jerked away, it was quite the opposite). “She... _we_... she thinks we ought to get going. It’s been four—”

“—five,” Cara interjected stubbornly.

“Four days,” Kahlan reiterated refusing on principle to include the night they’d spent before the spell had been cast. “I think we could all use a change of scenery. Even you, Zedd.”

Richard looked from Kahlan to Cara and back again, clearly trying to read the thought behind their expressions, before turning to his grandfather. “What do you think?”

Predictably, and much to Kahlan’s gratitude, Zedd’s eyes were locked on Cara.

“My dear,” he said, and Cara tensed at the endearment. “Are you sure you’re feeling well enough to travel so soon? You’re looking better than you were last night, but I’m not old enough, or fool enough, to think you’re recovered from what you went through.” He narrowed his eyes, piercing her with them, and Kahlan winced on Cara’s behalf. “How did you sleep last night?”

“Well enough,” Cara retorted with her characteristic dismissal, even though she must have realised Zedd would see through it.

Sighing, the wizard turned to Kahlan. “Did she?”

Torn between honesty and what she felt was best for Cara just then, Kahlan chewed on her lower lip. “She... slept.”

Zedd quirked a questioning eyebrow.

“Wizard...” Cara snapped. “Don’t—”

“Zedd,” Kahlan stepped in, before Cara could put her foot into her mouth and sabotage her chances completely. “I think, if the spell was going to have any lasting effects, they would’ve made themselves apparent by now.”

She tried not to think of the queasy headaches that still plagued Cara, or the nosebleeds that she wasn’t foolish enough to believe were completely gone even if they hadn’t resurfaced that morning. Those things, she tried to convince herself, were incidental; she needed to prove her loyalty to Cara somehow, and this seemed as good a way as any other.

“I promise you,” she went on, “she’s much better now than she was. The headaches are fewer, and she’s not bled at all since last night when she—”

— _woke up screaming in the middle of the night_.

She didn’t finish the sentence aloud, but she tore her gaze from Zedd to fix on Cara, willing the other woman to find her eyes and remember. Did she really want Richard to see that side of her, if the trauma-inducing nightmares recurred? Did she really want the Seeker, her Lord Rahl, to see that level of weakness in her? Even Kahlan herself would have felt some qualms at the thought of letting Richard see her troubled by her dreams, and Cara was far more protective of her flawless image than she was.

“I’m fine,” Cara said, answering both Kahlan’s unasked question and Zedd’s demanding eyebrow. “I slept well, my head is fine, and Kahlan can provide all I need.”

This time, it was Richard who quirked his brow.

“Kahlan,” Zedd said, stepping neatly in front of the Seeker before he had a chance to say anything. “Are you sure?”

In truth, Kahlan didn’t know. Part of her, just like Cara, longed to be back on the road, embracing the unfamiliarity of life in a state of transitive flux, of sleeping under the stars and walking for hours, the life they’d lived for so long now that she could scarcely imagine any other. But the rest of her was afraid. Afraid of having to calm and soothe and comfort Cara in front of Zedd (and, so much more, in front of Richard), afraid of having to explain the reasons for the screams she knew would come, afraid of Cara wrapping herself up inside a blanket of pain once more, simply because the alternative was letting Richard see her soul.

She could take care of Cara, she knew, and she could nurse her back to whatever had passed for health in the first place... but she wasn’t convinced she could do it with an audience of two men, and especially not when one of them was responsible for all the damage that had been caused in the first place, and other one still held the last shattered fragment of her heart.

Her heart, too, was afraid of having Cara and Richard both side-by-side for more than a few minutes – the Seeker at one arm, honest and brave and everything she’d ever wanted, and the Mord-Sith at the other, complicated and broken and everything she had always hated. She wanted space and distance. She wanted the security of knowing that what passed between Cara and herself would never be witnessed by Richard, and the freedom of looking into Richard’s eyes without Cara so close and so wounded.

Besides, if she was honest, she wanted to keep this part of Cara for herself. The exposed part, the tattered soul and the shattered heart, the confusion and the pain and the need to heal. They were _hers_ , she felt, and Richard would try to help if he saw them (because that was who he was), and Zedd would offer his skills as well (not because of who he was, but because he still felt responsible), and Kahlan knew that neither of them would ever truly understand even the faintest glimmer of what Cara was feeling. Kahlan alone had earned the right to understand it, and it filled her with indefinable rage to think that they might try and take that away from her.

“I understand her,” she said at last, knowing perfectly well that it wasn’t really an answer. “And she knows that. She isn’t afraid to ask me for what she needs, and I’m not afraid to do anything she asks of me. I’ve proven that, and she trusts me.” Her eyes locked with Richard’s, and she tried to ignore the way he tensed. “She trusts me to be what she needs.”

“I see,” Richard said.

With those two words, it was as if Zedd and his question had never existed, as if Cara wasn’t standing right there beside them, as if everything else in all the world had melted away and it was just Richard and Kahlan and the conflict rising up between them. The conflict that should never have existed in the first place, but which was as inescapable now as the sun’s rays pouring over them all. The conflict that would end them, even though neither of them were ready to see the end of what they were. Kahlan would have sold her soul to see that conflict destroyed, but she was powerless in the face of it, just as she was in the face of Cara’s soul-burned eyes.

Ever the most perceptive of them all, contrary to his appearance most of the time, Zedd sensed the sudden tension and dove in to alleviate it.

“Very well,” he said, and his eyes were clouded with concern, not all of which (Kahlan could tell) was to do with the state of Cara’s health. “In that case, I strongly suggest we make the proper arrangements.”

He turned towards Cara; the gesture came so seamlessly, so unpractised, it was only because she knew him so well that Kahlan could tell how deliberate it truly was.

“If you’re really as recovered as you’d have me believe,” he said, injecting just the right note of challenge into his voice to ensure Cara’s complicity, “you can help me talk our friend the innkeeper into packing up some provisions for us.”

Muttering a stream of curses under her breath, Cara nonetheless obeyed. Kahlan couldn’t deny it – Zedd certainly knew how to talk her into doing what he wanted.

The instant they were left alone, Richard turned to face her, sighing heavily.

“She’s yours,” he murmured quietly, as if he was still afraid that they might be overheard. “And you’re hers, Kahlan.”

“She needs me,” Kahlan countered. “It’s not the same. It’s not about...” She trailed off, then mirrored his sigh with one of her own. “I still love you, Richard.”

“But it’s different.”

He closed his eyes, looking tired, and he seemed so much like Cara that it broke Kahlan’s heart; why did they have to be so different, and yet so painfully alike?

“It’s not just because she needs you,” he went on. “When she doesn’t... when this is all just a memory... it won’t stop you feeling the things you feel about her.”

“No,” Kahlan acknowledged, though she wished with all her heart it would. “No, it won’t. I can’t stop this, Richard, however much I want to.”

“And I love you too much to make you try,” he told her, and the depth of finality in his tone was like nothing she had ever heard from him before. “Be hers, Kahlan.”

As kind as Kahlan was sure he was trying to be, she couldn’t conceal the flash of anger that pricked at her. Who was he to tell her what to do? Who was he to tell her who she belonged to, who had her heart, who held her soul? Who was he to say what she wanted, or to tell her who to love?

“It’s not as simple as that,” she snapped, unable to keep the fury from touching her voice as well as her eyes.

“I know it’s not,” he said, holding up both hands in a gesture of quiet surrender. “I’m not suggesting it is. I’m just saying, I love you too much to let my heart stand in the way of yours.”

“Well, thank you, Richard...” Kahlan ground out before she could stop herself; she knew that she was being unfair, that he was trying, but she couldn’t seem to silence herself. “...for your _permission_.”

“That’s not what this is!” he yelped, sounding hopeless. “Kahlan, I’m just trying to say that I understand. I don’t want you to worry about hurting me...” Kahlan sighed, suddenly hating herself. “...and I’m here for you, if you need me, just like I’ve always been, whatever happens.” He exhaled, not quite another sigh, but not far off. “I love you, Kahlan. I’ll always love you. My devotion and my love aren’t going to change, even if you do. That’s all I was trying to say.”

Kahlan forced herself to crack a smile, though she still wasn’t happy. He meant well, she forced herself to remember. He always meant well.

“You’re not very good at this,” she told him honestly, and he chuckled his agreement. “But thank you, Richard.”

When he touched her hand, gentle and sweet and so completely him, she could have sworn she felt his heart breaking.

It was several long and deeply uncomfortable minutes before Zedd and Cara returned, all four of their arms weighed down with carefully-wrapped packages. Zedd was looking more self-satisfied than Kahlan had ever seen him, while Cara looked very much as if she wished the ground would open up beneath them and swallow her whole.

“Looks like you were successful,” Richard observed with fabricated lightness, and Kahlan couldn’t help admiring the way his voice gave away nothing of what had taken place between them in their absence. “I’m guessing our host was happy to oblige?”

“Not at first,” Cara muttered with a dramatic sigh. “But then the wizard thought it would be prudent to show off some of his parlour tricks.”

“He was most impressed,” Zedd boasted unnecessarily, and Kahlan couldn’t hide the laugh that bubbled up in her chest.

“Can we get going?” Cara demanded, sounding sullen. “We have food now. There’s no reason for us to stay here.”

Trying very hard to keep her expression indifferent, Kahlan glanced from Richard to Zedd and back again, waiting for one or the other of them (or, ideally, both) to point out that they really did need to spend another night in the relative comfort and safety of the inn, but the insistences she’d been expecting never came. Apparently, though not entirely to Kahlan’s surprise, the men were just as hungry as Cara was to get back out into the wider world.

Fortunately for all involved, Richard was the one who stated that their pace be kept slow. Had anyone else made the suggestion, Kahlan knew that Cara would have argued vociferously (“ _you are too lazy, wizard_ ”, or “ _the Mother Confessor is unnecessarily overprotective_ ”), but they all knew that she’d never question an instruction given by Richard, however frequently she argued with him. Richard’s word, even now, was the word of law so far as Cara was concerned, and so she acquiesced (complaining the whole way, but still dutifully obedient) to keeping to the Seeker’s slow pace.

Even Kahlan had to admit that there was a certain therapeutic relief in travelling once again after so long in one place. The cool air was refreshing, the sunshine warm and intoxicating, and there was a delightful familiarity to the way the earth yielded beneath her boots; she hadn’t even realised she’d missed any of it until she found herself back in the heart of the natural world again and realised that she was dangerously close to feeling at peace.

She could almost lose herself in the staccato rhythm of simply walking and keeping pace with her friends, in the enigmatic thrall of the blue-green horizon and thinking about what lay beyond. She could almost dissolve to the sweet scent of nature-perfumed air and breezes seemingly kissed by the Creator herself. She could almost allow herself to forget the sound of Cara’s screams, and believe herself to be home.

It made her heart sing that Cara remained by her side, despite being even more vocal than usual in demanding that she be left alone; she seemed content to have Kahlan next to her, the familiar warmth of her body, the flurry of her hair when the breeze caught it, the blue of her eyes as she turned (though she knew she shouldn’t) to offer a supportive smile. There was no tension in the Mord-Sith’s posture as she walked, though Kahlan could tell with practiced experience exactly when her headaches surged up to claim her, however briefly, and was glad to see that they were indeed growing fewer and further between. By the look on her face, the steadiness of her step, the softness in her gaze, she seemed beatifically close to content.

At least, until they made camp for the night.

They had been travelling for some hours, amicable and companionable and as close to normal as they’d been in almost as long as Kahlan could remember... but, the instant they stopped, Richard pointing out that the sun was getting low (and Kahlan, for her part, unable to help noticing that Cara was starting to look pale), the Mord-Sith’s entire frame tightened with a tension so profound it would have taken a diamond-edged blade to cut into it. Kahlan supposed she should have anticipated it, and the fact that she was caught by surprise by the sudden shift in Cara’s demeanour only served to make her curse her own ignorance.

“I’ll take first watch,” Cara mumbled, the offer as predictable as it was impossible, and the other three turned in unison to stare at her.

“No, you won’t,” Richard told her, in the tone of voice that he reserved exclusively for giving Cara an order without using the word ‘order’. “You’ll rest.”

“I’m not tired,” she snapped doggedly. “I’m perfectly capable of keeping watch for a few hours, Richard. I am not an invalid.”

“Nobody’s accusing you of being an invalid,” Zedd said, far more gently than the Seeker. “But you are still in need of rest, Cara.”

Cara growled, turning to Kahlan as though she was the last remaining stronghold in a war.

“Kahlan,” she said, determined even as she had to know that her fight was futile. “Tell them I’m perfectly capable. Tell them I don’t need rest.” As she spoke, the hard edge of her voice took on a note that, to the Mother Confessor, sounded almost pleading. “Tell them I can take first watch without putting us in danger.”

Slowly, carefully, Kahlan lowered a hand to her shoulder. Cara tensed, looking very much like she wanted to break away and flee, but she didn’t, seeming to know that it would damage her cause if she showed any sign of being uncomfortable. Still, there was no disguising the horrified disgust in her eyes as she stared down at Kahlan’s hand as though it were spreading some lethal infection.

“Cara,” Kahlan started, gently massaging the too-taut muscle beneath her fingers as she carefully considered the right words. “I think you should get some sleep.”

Recoiling as if she’d been struck, Cara did pull away then, suddenly oblivious to how it looked, and to the sorrow that pulsed through Kahlan at the loss.

“What use are you?” Cara demanded, sounding almost wounded. “I thought you were going to... I thought you were here to support me, Kahlan!”

“Look at me,” Kahlan commanded her, and Cara did. “You know I am, and you know I will. But Richard and Zedd are right about this. You need to rest, if you’re to heal.”

“Kahlan...” Cara argued, leaning in to whisper in a voice so low that not even Zedd’s keen hearing would be able to pick up the words. “Kahlan, please. I’m... I will... _please_. Don’t make me. Don’t make me try and sleep. I cannot. I swear it, Kahlan, I can’t. If you will not let me use my agiels, then let me take watch. I am _begging_ you. Please.”

The word, that word she’d refused to use the previous night, caused a lance of sorrow to arc through Kahlan’s heart.

“I’ll be right by your side the whole time,” she vowed, keeping her voice just as low as Cara’s, even as she became painfully aware of Richard and Zedd’s curious eyes on them. “I won’t leave you, not even once.” Cara opened her mouth to protest, to insist that she didn’t need coddling, but Kahlan silenced her by pressing a tender fingertip to her lips. “You wanted me to help you to heal? I will, I promise, but _I_ have to be enough, Cara. No agiels. No self-inflicted suffering. None. And you can’t avoid sleep for the rest of your life. You—”

“I know that, Kahlan!”

“Then know that I won’t let your dreams take you,” Kahlan told her. “I’ll be there the whole time, holding you and watching over you and caring for you. I’ll be there, Cara. Even if I have to stay awake the whole night, I will not let the pain destroy you.”

Trembling from head to toe, Cara nodded her acquiescence. “Healing,” she sighed, sounding exhausted already, “is not easy.”

“No,” Kahlan agreed. “It’s not. But you’re strong, and you’re brave, and you’re not alone. And you can do it, Cara.”

“Kahlan?” Richard interjected, seeming to sense that he wouldn’t have his head bitten off for daring to interrupt. “Is everything all right?”

“Everything’s fine,” Kahlan told him swiftly, and the air around them seemed to expand as Cara’s rigid frame relaxed beside her.

“Good,” he said with quiet sincerity.

“Cara and I both need rest,” Kahlan went on. “You and Zedd can split the watch for one night, can’t you?”

“As many nights as you need,” Richard affirmed, closing the space between them in a single step and pulling Kahlan into a surprising embrace. “And as many days, too.”

“Thank you,” she said, and she meant it with all her soul.

On Zedd’s insistence (and to nobody’s surprise), they ate a hearty meal before finally retiring to bed. The food that had been so kindly provided by the innkeeper was of surprisingly good quality, and cooked well over the meagre fire that Richard and Cara worked to set up; Kahlan had tried to talk Cara out of going into the forest with Richard to collect firewood, but the Mord-Sith had been adamant that, if she wasn’t allowed to take watch, she would at least be of some use to the group. It was a mark, Kahlan supposed, of how far she’d come from the self-serving Mord-Sith she had been when she’d first joined them, and so she’d acquiesced with a smile to let Cara go foraging with Richard while she and Zedd prepared the barely-identifiable (but surprisingly tasty) meal.

They ate in silence; not even Zedd made any effort to fill the void with conversation (though Kahlan suspected that was borne less from an awareness of the grey mood, and more from an unhealthy infatuation with the slab of dried but well-cooked meat that was his dinner), and, by the time they meandered to their bedrolls, the fire crackling ever more quietly as time passed, Kahlan couldn’t deny that she felt as tired as Cara looked. She’d promised Cara that she’d stay awake all night if she needed to, though, (something that was looking more and more likely with every passing moment that Cara shifted in her bedroll), and she had every intention of seeing that pledge through, however fatigued it left her.

Cara, where she lay, was obviously uncomfortable, uneasy, and probably suffering yet another headache... but, more than any of those things, she was clearly exhausted. Sleep was calling out to her, loud enough that even Kahlan could hear it, but Cara was doing everything within her power to resist its thrall, to hide away from it for as long as possible. She still wanted to be rendered unconscious, Kahlan realised, instead of surrendering to her dreams; Kahlan could tell that she was hoping, if she just kept herself awake long enough, the Mother Confessor would finally just acquiesce to her pleas and use the agiels again.

It wasn’t going to happen.

When Cara rolled noisily over for what felt like the thousandth time, Kahlan gave up her efforts to sit quietly from her not-quite distance. She waited, with more patience than she’d thought she had just then, until Cara settled once again, then turned onto her side to gently wrap herself around the resistant Mord-Sith.

“I’m not asleep yet,” Cara grumbled, clearly not approving of the contact, though Kahlan couldn’t help noticing that she made no effort to tear herself free.

“I know,” Kahlan hummed against her ear. “But you’re restless. I thought you could use a little help getting there.”

“I don’t need—” Cara started, sounding offended.

“I didn’t say ‘need’,” Kahlan told her, tightening her hold; despite herself, Cara leaned in at the firmness of her tone. “I said ‘use’. You don’t _need_ your agiels to inflict pain... but you use them anyway, because it gives you some comfort to hold them.”

“Kahlan,” Cara sighed. “This is pointless. I—”

“Shh,” Kahlan instructed softly.

A low growl escaped Cara’s throat, but she did as she was told. Kahlan smiled, allowing her lips to shape the expression against the curve of Cara’s jaw. Seemingly against her will, Cara allowed the barest ghost of a sigh at the contact, and Kahlan’s smile widened as her strain-tightened muscles relaxed almost imperceptibly. Part of her wanted to applaud the unconscious display of trust, the almost-willingness to be exposed (to be weak), but the majority of her was afraid that bringing the barely-existent gestures to Cara’s attention would be a certain way of ending them.

Instead, she simply murmured unobtrusive endearments into her ear, traced the lines of her face with chaste kisses, trailed the tips of her fingers along the seams of her leathers. Held her close, allowed her to breathe in the warmth and the love and all the things she would never put into words. Gave everything she was, everything she had, without ever letting Cara know that that was what it was.

She knew, in a thousand different ways and by a thousand different signs, the exact moment when Cara succumbed at last to sleep. She knew by the way her muscles went slack beneath her hands, by the way those too-tired lines on her face eased into the momentary peace of slumber, by the way her mouth fell half-open with the stuttered breathing of deepening restfulness. She knew by every part of her, because she knew every one of those parts as intimately as she knew them on herself.

Much to her relief, Cara was granted a few much-needed minutes of real sleep before she began to show once again the effects of pain.

It began slowly, almost imperceptibly. A half-repressed whimper, a slight tremor, the unguarded whisper of a name that might have been her own. Kahlan didn’t do anything, though she knew it would soon be necessary, because she wanted to believe that Cara’s trauma would subside if she was left alone to work through it. She wanted to see the dream turn inwards on itself, to see the pain wash itself away, to see Cara relax again under her own power. She prayed to the Creator – and anyone else who would listen – that they would show mercy to the Mord-Sith just this once.

However, if they were listening at all, the Creator and her fellow deities were not feeling merciful this time, and it was an unbearably short time before Cara’s discomfort began to grow more apparent.

Kahlan didn’t wait for the whimpers (already keening and raw-throated) to evolve into the screams she knew they’d become if left unchecked. She didn’t wait for the tremors to become shuddering, or for Cara’s ragged breathing to become agonised panting, and she didn’t wait for the Mord-Sith’s body to bend in upon itself as it withstood pain upon pain that wasn’t real. She sat up swiftly, pulling Cara up with her, and held her so close it was only by the bloodied red of Cara’s leather that she knew where she ended and the other woman began.

“Cara,” she pleaded, softer even than a whisper. “Cara, wake up. It’s all right.”

The sound that escaped Cara’s throat was so close to a scream, it was a miracle it didn’t wake Zedd or bring Richard from his watch.

Kahlan breathed her name again, more urgently, and Cara arched into her, as if her body couldn’t figure out whether she was the cause of the suffering or her salvation from it. She could already feel the clammy slickness of sweat forming on Cara’s brow, between her breasts, underneath her leathers, and could feel the whip-tight tension in her body reaching its crescendo as the pain in her mind swelled and broke like waves over her. And then she opened her mouth, wide and taut-jawed, and Kahlan knew what was coming, and knew beyond all doubt that she needed to silence it before it had a chance to surface.

Not stopping to think, acting on an instinct that ran deeper even than the blood in her veins, Kahlan lowered her mouth to Cara’s, fever-like urgency clouding her mind and searing her heart. It was more than a kiss, more than them, more than the world, and Kahlan couldn’t suppress the love that flared within her as she swallowed Cara’s embryonic scream like it was oxygen.

Cara’s eyes snapped wide open, pupils darker than the night sky and lost in a cascade of ocean-coloured pain and suffering.

Swiftly, humiliated, Kahlan pulled away. “You were...” she started, then faltered. “You were having a... nightmare.”

There was a sheen of emotion over Cara’s eyes, indefinable and confusing. It was like nothing Kahlan had ever seen before, in Cara or anyone else’s. It wasn’t healing, and it certainly wasn’t love... but it wasn’t quite pain either. It was less than nothing and more than everything, and it was so profound that she felt herself almost drowning in it. She ached, with every fibre of her being, for Cara to say something, but at the same time she couldn’t help hoping that she’d lost the ability to speak at all; as much as she longed to hear Cara assure her that she was all right, she couldn’t bear the thought of seeing this moment end, or of hearing that indefinable emotion named aloud.

“Kahlan?” Cara managed at last.

“I’m sorry,” Kahlan said, not quite as sincerely as she knew she should have. “I had to. You were in pain. It was the only thing I could think of to stop you screaming.”

Cara blinked; she looked like she’d just been brought back from the dead, lost and unfocused, completely and utterly helpless; she was gazing up at Kahlan as though she had never seen her before, awestruck and a little frightened, and Kahlan felt tears prick behind her eyes.

Clearly overwhelmed (though whether by the pain or the other thing, Kahlan couldn’t guess), Cara tried to move; she tried to turn and face Kahlan, but her body was limp and unresponsive, and she could only lay there in her arms, floundering hopelessly for purchase. Kahlan had never seen her so actively weak before, so small, so utterly dependent on someone else to keep her upright – to keep her _breathing_ – and the Mother Confessor could only tighten her arms around her and pray that it was enough.

“Kahlan...”

“I’m here.”

“Good,” Cara breathed, and the word came straight from the heart.

Not waiting for an invitation, Kahlan leaned in again, letting her lips press with ever-increasing fervour against Cara’s forehead, her cheeks, the edge of her jaw, everywhere.

“I’m here,” she murmured between not-quite kisses. “I’m here, Cara. I’m here. I’m—”

“ _Kahlan_.”

The raw urgency in the twin syllables of her name, blazing beyond primal, stopped Kahlan in her tracks. It was overwhelming, silencing her instantly and rendering her captive to those depthless eyes, to the unuttered emotion shimmering behind them, and to the pain and the trauma and the blood and everything else that made up Cara, all suddenly magnified a hundred times.

“Kahlan,” Cara whispered again, and her voice was an agiel to Kahlan’s chest, painful and bloody. “Kahlan, you... I...”

“I know.”

“I am...”

“ _Cara_.”

And this time, Kahlan was the one speaking with urgency, voice so ragged that she didn’t even recognise it as her own. Cara’s eyes were wide, hopeless and helpless and so many other things that Kahlan could scarcely process them all, and it was more than Kahlan could do to keep from taking the Mord-Sith’s face in her hands and gazing so deep into those eyes that she was sure they’d both drown.

“Cara,” she repeated, willing Cara to see her, “I _know_. All of it, every word. I know. I know how much pain you’re in, I know how desperately you think you need your agiels. I know how scared you are, I know that you don’t think this is going to be enough. I know how hard you’re going to try and make me drive the pain into you again, because you’re frightened and you’re hurting and that pain is all you know. I know you think you can’t heal, that this is somehow beyond you... that you don’t _deserve_ to heal. I know it all, Cara. And I know you.”

“You don’t...” Cara told her, breathless and hungry. “You don’t know _anything_.”

“I—”

“You don’t know...” Cara went on, ignoring her, and every inch of her lithe form was trembling. “You don’t know that you are the only thing keeping me alive. You don’t know that you are the reason I wish I wasn’t.”

Kahlan felt tears shimmering behind her eyes, and she lowered her hands. “Cara...”

“No, Kahlan,” Cara went on, the words tumbling from her like slate from a collapsing roof, radiating outwards from some place deep within her that neither of them had ever known existed. “You don’t know how much I care about you. You don’t know how much it hurts that I can’t tell you. You don’t know that I want the pain because it’s easier than looking at you and knowing that I still can’t... that, even after everything I... everything we...”

She closed her eyes. Kahlan couldn’t even blink.

“Even after everything,” Cara pressed, ever more urgent. “I... I’m still too weak to tell you. You don’t know how much I care. You don’t know that you are my friend, and my sister, and so much more. You don’t know. You _can’t_ know, Kahlan... because I _still_ cannot tell you.”

Kahlan tried to speak, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t even make a sound. Her throat was closed, cutting off her air and threatening to choke her.

“You’ll teach me to heal,” Cara groaned. “You’ll bring me back from the pain that haunts me, the pain that I still believe is mine by right to endure... you’ll make me believe I deserve more... you’ll make me trust you and care for you and believe you and be better for you. You’ll do all those things – make me _become_ all those things. You’ll give me all of yourself give me hope that I might one day become some fragment of what you see in me. You will do everything, give everything... and you will never know that you _are_ everything.”

She forced down a breath, and Kahlan could see the depthless exhaustion crashing over her. She wanted to wrap Cara up so tight in herself that they became one, to end the flood of words before they killed them both, but she could no more move than she could speak. She could only watch, paralysed and awestruck as Cara choked on air, shaking and shuddering and so very close to crying.

“It’s worse than being broken,” she admitted, at long last. “I deserve the pain. But you do not deserve this. All of this, Kahlan... and I still failed you.”

“Cara.”

She wanted to say so much more, but the halting breath that was Cara’s name had in itself almost been more than Kahlan was capable of.

“I can’t, Kahlan,” Cara whispered, utterly defeated. “I cannot.”

“You _did_ ,” Kahlan told her.

She could feel her own voice was trembling with emotion and the tears she could feel stinging just beneath her eyelids and threatening to spill over, and fought the reaction down. If she allowed the tears to fall, she knew, she would be lost to them. 

“Cara,” she repeated instead. “You did. You just did.”

Had it not been so painfully serious, the look on Cara’s face would have been almost comical. She genuinely had no idea, Kahlan realised, of the depth of emotion she had just given voice to. She honestly didn’t know just how much she had just confessed to. She was completely and utterly bewildered, and Kahlan would have laughed if she wasn’t so completely overwhelmed.

“I did no such thing,” she mumbled eventually. “I... I would have...”

“Cara,” Kahlan interrupted, heat flaring up like a furnace within her.

Before her rational mind could stop her, before Cara had the chance to protest, she leaned in. Stopped when their lips were less than an inch apart. Closed her eyes, tasted the salt of Cara’s emotions as they poured unchecked from some long-forgotten place within her. Drank down the tainted essence of Cara, breathed out herself in return. Breathed love.

“Kahlan,” Cara forced out. “Kahlan, you can’t make this go away. You cannot think that, by claiming I said—”

“Cara,” Kahlan murmured.

She could feel the pull between them, magnetic. She could feel everything – every tremor, every thought, every breath, everything – just as she could feel the nonexistent space between their mouths growing ever scarcer, ever smaller, ever less. It was a moment that went on forever, closer and breathless and tangible, mouths so close, despite the worlds of distance still between them, closer...

...and then – impossibly, miraculously, beautifully – they were touching, pressing, kissing, exploring, intimate and eternal and _them_...

...and still Cara, because she was Cara, was mumbling her dizzy protestations over and over and over, whispering and whimpering them into Kahlan’s mouth, forcing the words out through the gasping spaces between breaths and lips and touches...

...until, at last, Kahlan couldn’t take another moment of her relentless chattering.

“Enough,” she said, cutting Cara off at the source.

She allowed her lips, still pressed against Cara’s, to curve up into a smile. It was warm and honest and pure, radiating love and branding them both with it, and she felt the weight of Cara’s tangled limbs shaking beneath it. Trembling, for the first time, with the opposite of pain.

“Kahlan...”

“ _Cara_ ,” Kahlan breathed, pouring all of herself into the whispered name. “Shut _up_.”

Cara, too weak to protest, did.

It seemed like a lifetime before the need for air forced them apart, and it was only then that Kahlan noticed the telltale tracks of tears carving a damp path down the side of Cara’s face. She was crying, Kahlan realised, and she wasn’t even trying to hide it.

“Kahlan...” she managed, and this time Kahlan didn’t try to silence her. “Kahlan, what...?”

“Love, Cara,” Kahlan replied. “It’s _love_.”

Cara’s eyelids fluttered, as though she was trying to reconcile what she was hearing with what she was feeling, and what she was feeling with what she’d been trained all her life not to feel. The hollow shell where her heart had been, the empty void that had once held a child’s soul, the pain-filled chasm that was Mord-Sith... and, overlaying all those things, the alien but familiar knowledge that this was right. That, as desperately as she wanted to cast aside what Kahlan was offering, she couldn’t. It was, Kahlan could see, already there, blooming and blossoming and filling the dried-out desert of her.

“There’s no shame in feeling, Cara,” Kahlan went on, replacing her mouth with her fingertips, tracing the curve of Cara’s lower lip. “And there’s no weakness in letting yourself be loved.”

“I’m not afraid of weakness,” Cara said.

“Then what?”

Looking more fragile than Kahlan had ever seen her, Cara closed her eyes. “I am afraid of your faith in me.”

Kahlan’s heart ached. More than anything in the world, she wanted to reassure the other woman that she didn’t need to be afraid, that faith was a good thing, that she was already everything Kahlan saw in her... but the words wouldn’t come. She would have given everything she possessed right then to be able to tell Cara, over and over again until she had no choice but to accept the truth for what it was, but she could not. Just as it was beyond Cara’s ability to see how far she’d come, it was beyond Kahlan’s to make her see it.

“Kahlan,” Cara forced out, choked by her own tears. “If I... if I allow you to...” She groaned helplessly, unable to even say the words. “I will have no choice but to become what you see in me. And I am not strong enough. On my life, Kahlan, I am not.”

“You don’t need to be,” Kahlan told her. “You don’t need to be anything more or less than what you are. _Cara_.”

Cara closed her eyes, long lashes catching the tears that still fell freely from beneath them. “It’s not enough.”

Kahlan smiled and leaned in to kiss the moisture away. “It’s more than enough.”

She knew that Cara wouldn’t believe her. She couldn’t; she was incapable of seeing even the slightest glimmer of goodness in herself, and all the more so now, locked up as she still was in the soul-destroying pain of her own past deeds. She could no more see anything good in herself than Kahlan could have seen anything good in her all those months ago when they’d first met. It was more than Cara was capable of – perhaps more than she would ever be capable of – to see anything within herself but cruelty and evil and pain.

Cara would never have faith in herself. What rough-edged shard of self-worth she might once have had was gone, stripped from her when she was little more than a child, and stripped again by the phantom memory of a breaking that had never happened. Her sense of identity was so broken, so irreparably damaged, Kahlan knew it would be a thousand lifetimes before she would ever allow herself to look within and see anything at all. In her own mind, she was a lost cause. She was beyond salvation, beyond hope, beyond reprieve.

But it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter than Cara would never see in herself the beauty that Kahlan knew was there. It didn’t matter that, even if she lived to see another thousand years, she would never find the strength to believe in the goodness within her. It didn’t matter that Cara would never, ever have faith in herself.

It didn’t matter.

Kahlan had faith enough for them both.

**FIN**

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Change The Words, Make Me Blind [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6710152) by [tinypinkmouse_podfic (tinypinkmouse)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinypinkmouse/pseuds/tinypinkmouse_podfic)




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